
Class . BX 11 SI 
Book, JA, 5? , 



THE END 

OF 

RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY, 

IN A 

FRIENDLY CORRESPONDENCE 

BETWEEN A 

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF PROTESTANTS 

AND A 

CATHOLIC DIVINE. 

IN THREE PARTS. 



BY THE RIGHT REV. JOHN MILNER D. D. 




1 Thou art Peter ; and upon this rockl will build my Church, and the gates 
of hell shall not prevail against it." 



FROM THE LAST LONDON EDITION REVISED BY THE AUTHOR. 

NEW YORK: 
EDWARD DUN IG AN & BROTHER, 

151 FULTON-STREET. 
1849. 




THE EDITOR TO THE READER, 



In ihis work, entitled " The End of Religious Controversy," 
the author and his correspondents having established the cer- 
tainty of divine revelation and the truth of the Christian religion, 
he proposes the means by which, among the various discordant 
creeds of those who profess Christianity, the true faith which 
Jesus Christ brought down from heaven, and the true church 
which he established on earth, may be discovered. He under* 
takes to prove that we are provided with the certain means of 
making this discovery, and that Christ himself has left us a rule 
of faith, adapted to the capacities of all, by which we may come 

the knowledge of true religion. 

Before he attempts to show what this rule is, he notices cer- 
tain methods, which have been adopted as rules of faith, and 
proves them to be insufficient and fallacious. Private inspira- 
tion, he maintains, cannot be a rule of faith, because private in- 
spiration is in itself a questionable pretension ; may be claimed 
by one as well as by another, and all alike ; and has, in fact, 
been claimed and acted upon by different sectaries, in support 
of different and contradictory tenets ; at the same time that it 
has, in many instances, led the pretenders to it into the greatest 
absurdities and most shocking impieties. Another rule of faith, 
the rule adopted by the reformed churches in general, is the 
scripture or the written word of God, left to the interpretation of 
each individual: for as no supreme, unerring authority is ac- 
knowledged by Protestants to determine the sense and meaning 
of Scripture, or to decide and announce what articles of faith 
are necessary for salvation, individual judgment is made the 
guide to individuals, the necessity of preachers is done away, 
and the commission of Jesus Christ to his apostles, " Go, teach 
all nations," is annulled. Where there is no obligation to hear 
and obey, there can be no authority to teach and instruct. The 
church, as an infallible teacher, is discarded, but its powers are 
transferred to each individual person ; each person possesses 
infallibility in himself, each person is himself a church, accord- 



4 

ingly as he may please to form his creed ; and every possible 
contradictory opinion is equally defensible, as resting upon the 
interpretation of Scripture, adopted by the person who maintains 
it. This rule, like private inspiration, m shown to be fallacious 5 
since? like the former, it has led, as it is calculated to lead, to 
opposite conclusions on numberless points of faith : and since there 
is no acknowledged judge on earth to decide, it necessarily fol- 
lows that either contradictory doctrines are favored by the sacred 
volume, and revealed, as equally true., by the God from whom 
that sacred volume came, or else that it was intended by the 
God of peace, as an apple of discord, and meant by the God of 
truth for the propagation of falsehood. But as such intentions 
can never be imputed to the Deity, nor can it be imagined tha 
our Redeemer established a church to succeed to the Jewish 
dispensation, and to last till the end of the world, so vague and 
indeterminate in its creed, so uncertain as to its form or even 
existence, in one place professing, on the authority of God's in- 
fallible word 5 articles and doctrines which, in another place, it 
anathematizes and disclaims on the same unerring authority, — - 
the author maintains that the Scripture alone does not furnish 
this certain and attainable rule adapted to the capacities and sit- 
uations of mankind at large. 

Still he maintains that a rule does exist, and ever has existed 
since the time of Christ, by which the faith of his disciples is se- 
cured from error, and his true religion, with all its doctrines and 
articles of belief proclaimed to them with equal certainty, by 
means of his protecting Spirit, his promised Paraclete, as if He 
were visibly seen by them, and were heard by them speaking in 
his own person, as when he conversed with his disciples upon 
earth. This rule, he contends, is the word of God, written and 
unwritten, as it is interpreted and explained by his appointed 
oracle, HIS CHURCH, which he has authorized and commis- 
sioned to teach all nations, while he has commanded all mankind 
to hear his church. This rule of faith, subject to the interpreta- 
tion of an infallible expositor, inspired by himself, and guided by 
his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, must necessarily communi- 
cate his revelations, must infallibly teach his truth, the whole 
truth, and the truth alone. This rule, thus unerringly explained 
by the Light of Light, inevitably implies teachers instituted by 
Jesus Christ himself and a succession of teachers kept up by 
Him, and inspired by Him. It secures their followers from the 
danger of error, in adopting their own conjectures, and the teach- 
ers it preserves from the spirit of innovation and imposture, from 
all the attempts of ambitious or interested dogmatizers. He 
then proceeds to show, that the church dispersed throughout the 
world and in communion with the See of Rome (commonly 



5 



called the Catholic Church) alone adopts and follows this in- 
fallible rule ; and he produces numberless arguments to prove 
that, whereas Christians have, in every age since that of the 
apostles, professed their belief of One, Holy, Catholic, and Apos- 
tolic Church, — the Church in communion with the See of Rome, 
and presided over by the successor of St. Peter in that see, exclu- 
sively exhibits these four essential marks of the church of Christ, 
viz., Unity, in doctrine, liturgy, government, and constitution; 
Sanctity, in doctrine, in the means of holiness, and the fruits of 
holiness; Catholicity, or universality, in its extent, as to time 
and place, no less than its name, which it has borne from time 
immemorial ; and, finally, Apostolicity, in its descent and reg- 
ular succession of ministers, from the time of the apostles, as 
well as in its sacraments and sacred institutions. He then pro- 
ceeds to show, that these marks are deficient to every Christian 
society, except that which is in communion with the See of Rome, 
and which exclusively enjoys, as it ever has enjoyed, the dis- 
tinctive appellation of the Catholic Church. 

Here, strictly speaking, his work is at an end and controversy 
concluded. For the infallible superintendence and inspiration 
of Jesus Christ promised and preserved, and the marks, by which 
Ms church may be distinguished from every other society or 
congregation, being ascertained and applied, it follows of conse- 
quence, (without particular proof with regard to each particular 
article,) that every doctrine of a church so guarded and protected, 
must be the doctrine of Jesus Christ himself and the church se- 
cure from error. However, for the sake of candid and sincere 
inquirers, the author condescends to particular examination ; 
brings forward the principal charges that are usually made 
against the Roman Catholic Church, and proves them to be 
either the involuntary errors of mistaken ignorance, or the un- 
fair means resorted to by misrepresentation, with the view to 
blacken and disfigure the spouse of Christ. He draws aside the 
mask which malice had held up as her genuine countenance, 
and displays her form and features in all their native beauty 
and loveliness. For further satisfaction, he explains and justi- 
fies those particular doctrinal points, which are excepted against 
by the separatists from the Church of Rome. 

Such are the nature and character of the work now presented 
to the public ; such is the object of the pre-eminent writer, 
which if he have attained, he has without question put an End 
to Religious Controversy, and fully justified the title given to his 
matchless performance. Let the reader judge. 

1* 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

Letter I. — Mr. Brown's Apology to Dr. Milner — Account of the Friendly 
Society of New Cottage 11 

Essay I. — On the Existence of God and Natural Religion, by the Rev. Sam- 
uel Carey, LL.D 14 

Essay II, — On the Truth of the Christian Religion, by Do 18 

Letter II. — Dr. Milner's Conditions for entering on the Correspondence — 
Freedom of Speech — Sincerity and Candor — A Conclusive Method.... 23 

Let. III. — Agreement to the Conditions on the part of the Society 25 

Let. IV. — Dispositions for success in Religious Inquiries — Renunciation of 
prejudices, passions, and vicious inclinations — Fervent prayer 25 

Let. V.— Rule or Method of finding out the True Religion — Christ has left a 
Rule — This Rule must be sure and unerring — It must be adapted to the 
capacity and situations of the bulk of mankind 27 

Let. VI. — First fallacious Rule ; Private inspiration — This has led number, 
less Christians into errors, impiety, and vice, in ancient and in modern 
times — Account of Modern fanatics, Anabaptists, Quakers, Moravians, 
Swedenborgians, Methodists, &c 29 

Let. VII. — Objections of certain Members of the Society answered 38 

Let. VIII. — Second fallacious Rule ; the Scripture, according to each person's 
particular interpretation of it — Christ did not intend that mankind, in gen. 
eral, should learn his Religion from a book — No Legislator ever made 
Laws without providing Judges and Magistrates to explain and enforce 
them — Dissensions, divisions, immorality, and infidelity, which have arisen 
from the private interpretation of Scripture — Illusions of Protestants in this 
matter — Their inconsistency in making Articles, Catechisms, &c. — Ac- 
knowledgment of learned Protestants on this head 41 

Let. IX. — The subject continued — Protestants have no evidence of the In- 
spiration of Scripture : nor of its authenticity : nor of the fidelity of their 
copies : nor of its sense — Causes of the obscurity of Scripture : instances 
of this — The Protestant Rule affords no ground for Faith — Doubts in which 
those who follow it live and also die 52 

Let. X. — The True Rule, namely, the Whole Word of God, unwritten as 
well as written, subject to the interpretation of the Church — In this and 
in every other country, the written law is grounded upon the unwritten 
law — Christ taught the Apostles by word of mouth, and sent them to preach 
it by word of mouth — This method was followed by thern and their disci- 
ples and successors — Testimonies of this from the Fathers of the five first 
centuries 61 

Let. XI. — The subject continued — Protestants forced to have recourse to the 
Catholic Rule, in different instances — Their vain attempts to adopt in it 
other instances — Quibbling evasions of the Articles, Canons, Oaths, and 
Laws respecting uniformity — Acknowledged necessity of deceiving the 
people — Bishop Hoadley the patron of this hypocrisy — The Catholic Rule 
confessed by Bishop Marsh to be the Original Rule — Proofs that it has 
never been abrogated — Advantages of this Rule to the Church at large, 
and to its individual members 70 

Let. XII. — Objections answered — Texts of Scripture — Other objections — 
Illusory declamation of Bishop Porteus — The advice of Tobias, when he 
sent his son into a strange country, recommended to the Society of New 
Cottage 84 



CONTENTS. 



PART II. 

Let. XIII. — Congratulation with the Society of New Cottage on their ac- 
knowledgment of the right Rule of Faith — Proof that the Catholic Church 
alone is possessed of this Rule — Characters or Marks of the True Church 94 

Let. XIV. — Unity, the First Mark of the True Church — This proved from 
reason : from Scripture : and from the Holy Fathers 98 

Let. XV. — Want of Unity among Protestants in general — This acknowledg- 
ed by their eminent writers — Striking instances of it in the Established 
Church — Vain attempts to reconcile diversity of belief with uniform Ar- 
ticles 99 

Let. XVI. — Unity of the Catholic Church — in Doctrine : in Liturgy : in Gov- 
ernment, and Constitution 106 

Let. XVII. — Objections against the exclusive claims of Catholics — Extract 
of a letter from the Rev. , Prebendary of Bishop Watson's doc- 
trine on this head 109 

Let. XVIII. — Objections answered — Bishop Watson, by attempting to prove 
too much, proves noihing — Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers 
on this head — Exclusive claim of the Catholic Church a proof of her 
truth 110 

Let. XIX. — Second Mark of the True Church, Sanctity — Sanctity of doc- 
trine wanting to the different Protestant Communions — to Luther's system : 
to Calvin's : to that of the Established Church : to those of Dissenters and 
Methodists — Doctrine of the Catholic Church holy. Postscript. — Varia- 
tions and impiety of the Rev. John Wesley's doctrine 115 

Let. XX. — Means of Sanctity — The Seven Sacraments possessed by Catho- 
lics — Protestants possess none of them, except Baptism — The whole Litur- 
gy of the Established Church borrowed from the Catholic Missal and Ritual 
— Sacrifice the most acceptable worship of God — The most perfect Sacri- 
fice offered in the Catholic Church — Protestants destitute of Sacrifice — 
Other means of Sanctity in the Catholic communion 125 

Let. XXI. — Fruits of Sanctity — All the saints were Catholics — Comparison 
of eminent Protestants with contemporary Catholics — Immorality caused 
by changing the ancient Religion 132 

Let. XXII. — Objections answered — False accounts of the Church before the 
Reformation, so called — Ditto of John Fox's Martyrs — The vices of a few 
Popes no impeachment of the Church's Sanctity — Scriptural practices and 
exercises common among Catholics, but despised by Protestants 135 

Let. XXIII. — Divine Attestation of Sanctity in the Catholic Church — Mira- 
cles the Criterion of Truth — Christ appeals to them, and promises a con- 
tinuation of them — The Holy Fathers and Church. writers attest their con- 
tinuation, and appeal to them in proof of the True Church — Evidence of 
the Truth of many Miracles — Irreligious skepticism of Dr. Conyers Mid- 
dleton : this undermines the Credit of the Gospel — Continuation of Mira- 
cles down to the present time : living witnesses of it 138 

Let. XXIV. — Objections answered — False and unauthenticated miracles no 
disproof of true and authenticated ones — Strictness of the examination of 
reported miracles at Rome — Not necessary to know God's design in work- 
ing each miracle — Examination of the arguments of celebrated Protestants 
against Catholic miracles — Objections of Gibbon and the late Bishop of 
Salisbury, (Dr. John Douglass,) against St. Bernard's miracles, refuted — 
St. Xavier's miracles proved from the authors quoted against them — Dr. 
Middleton's confident assertion clearly refuted — Bishop Douglas's Conclu- 
sive Evidence from Acosta, against St. Xavier's miracles, clearly refuted, 
by the testimony of the said Acosta — Testimony of Ribadeneira concern, 
ing St, Ignatius's miracles, truly stated — True account of the miracle of 



8 



CONTENTS. 



Saragossa — Impostures at the tomb of Abbe" Paris — Refutation of the Rev 
Peter Robert's pamphlet, concerning the miraculous cure of Winefrid 
White 150 

Let. XXV. — The True Church Catholic — Always Catholic in name, by the 
testimony of the Fathers — Still distinguished by that name in spite of all 
opposition 157 

Let. XXVI. — Qualities of Catholicity — The Church Catholic as to its mem- 
bers : as to its extent: as to its duration — The original Church 'of this 
country 160 

Let. XXVII. — Objections of the Rev. Joshua Clark answered — Existence 
of an invisible Church disproved — Vain attempt to trace the existence of 
Protestantism through the discordant heresies of former ages — Vain Prog, 
nostication of the failure of the True Church — Late attempts to under- 
mine it 166 

Let. XXVIII. — The True Church, Apostolical : so described by the ancient 
Fathers— APOSTOLICAL TREE of the Catholic Church explained, by 
a brief account of the Popes and of distinguished Pastors, also of Nations 
converted by her, and of heretics and schismatics cut off from the True 
Church 169 

Let. XXIX. — Apostolical succession of Ministry in the Catholic Church — - 
Among Protestant Societies the Church of England alone claims such sue 
cession— Doctrine and conduct of Luther, and of different Dissenters on 
this point — Uncertainty of the Orders of the Established Church, from the 
doctrine of its founders : from the history of the times : from the defective, 
ness of the form — Apostolic Mission evidently wanting to all Protestants — ■ 
They cannot show an ordinary mission : they cannot work miracles to 
prove an extraordinary one 181 

Let. XXX. — Objections of the Rev. Josuah Clark answered — Apostolical 
ministry not interrupted by the personal vices of certain Popes — Fable of 
Pope Joan refuted — Comparison between the Protestant and the Catholic 
Missions for the conversion of Infidels — Vain prediction of conversions and 
of reformation by the Bible Societies — Increase of crimes commensurate 
with that of the Societies. Postscript. — Recapitulation of things proved 
in the foregoing Letters..... 189 

PART III. 

Let. XXXI. — Introduction. — Effects produced by the foregoing Letters on 
the minds of Mr. Brown and others of his Society — This in part counteract- 
ed by the Bishop of London's (Dr. Porteus') Charges against the Catholic 
Religion 199 

Let. XXXII. — Observations on the charges in question — Impossibility of the • 
True Church being guilty of them — Just conditions to be required by a 
Catholic Divine in discussing them — Calumny and misrepresentation ne- 
cessary weapons for the assailants of the True Church — Instances of gross 
calumny published by eminent Protestant writers, now living — Effects of 
these calumnies — No Catholic ever shaken in his faith by them — They oc- 
casion the conversion of many Protestants — They render their authors 
dreadfully guilty before God 200 

Let. XXXIII. — Charge of Idolatry — Protestantism not originally founded on 
this — Invocation of the prayers of Angels and Saints grossly misrepresent- 
ed by Protestants : truly stated from the Council of Trent and Catholic 
Doctors — Vindication of the practice — Evasive attack of the Bishop of Dur- 
ham : retorted upon his Lordship — The practice recommended by Luther : 
vindicated by distinguished Protestant Bishops — Not imposed upon the 
faithful: highly consoling and beneficial < 270 



CONTENTS. 



9 



Let. XXXIV. — Religious Memorials— Doctrine and practice of Catholics, 
most of all, misrepresented on this head — Old Protestant versions of 
Scripture corrupted to favor such misrepresentation — Unbounded calum- 
nies in the Homilies and other Protestant publications — True doctrine of 
the Catholic Chureh defined by the Council of Trent, and taught in her 
books of instruction — Errors of Bishop Porteus, in fact and in reasoning — • 
Inconsistency of his own practice — No obligation on Catholics of possess- 
ing pious images, pictures, or relics 214 

Let. XXXV— Objections refuted — That the Saints cannot hear us — Extrav- 
agant addresses to Saints — Want of candor in explaining them — These no 
evidence of the Faith of the Church — Falsehoods of the Bishop of London, 
concerning the ancient doctrine and practice , , 219 

Let. XXXVI. — Transubstantiation— Important remark of Bishop Bossuet 
concerning it — Catholics not worshippers of bread and wine — Acknow- 
ledgment of some eminent Protestants — Disingenuity of others, in con- 
cealing the main question, and bringing forward another of secondary im- 
portance — The Lutherans and the most respectable Prelates of the Estab- 
lishment agree with Catholics on the main point „ 222 

Let. XXXVII.— The Real Presence — Variations of the Established Church 
on this point — Inconsistency of her present doctrine concerning it — Proofs 
of the Real Presence from Christ's promise of the Sacrament ; from his in- 
stitution of it — The same proved from the ancient Fathers — Absurd posi- 
tion of Bishop Porteus, as to the origin of the tenet — The reality strongly 
maintained by Luther — Acknowledged by the most learned English Bish- 
ops and Divines — Its superior excellence and sublimity,...., 225 

Let. XXXVIII. — Objections answered— Texts of Scripture examined — Tes- 
timony of the senses weighed — Alleged contradictions disproved 233 

Let. XXXIX. — -Communion under one or both kinds a matter of discipline — 
Protestants forced to recur to Tradition and Church discipline — -The blessed 
Eucharist a Sacrifice as well as a Sacrament — As a Sacrifice, both kinds 
necessary : as a Sacrament, whole and entire under either kind — Protest- 
ants receive no Sacrament at all — The apostles sometimes administered 
the communion under one kind — The text, 1 Cor. xi. 27, corrupted in the 
English Protestant Bible — Testimonies of the Fathers for communion in 
one kind — Occasion of the ordinances of St. Leo and Pope Gelasius — 
Discipline of the Church at different times In this matter — Luther allowed 
of communion in one kind ; also the French Calvinlsts ; also the Church 
of England 236 

Let. XL. — Excellence of Sacrifice — Appointed by God — Practised by all 
people, except Protestants — Sacrifice of the New Law, promised of old to 
the Christian Church — Instituted by Christ — The Holy Fathers bear testi- 
mony to it, and performed it — St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews misinter- 
preted by the Bishops of London, Lincoln, &c. — Deception of talking of 
the Popish Mass — Inconsistency of the Established Church in ordaining 
Priests without having a Sacrifice — Irreligious invectives of Dr. Hey 
against the Holy Mass, without his understanding it ! 241 

Let. XLI. — Absolution from sin — Horrid misrepresentation of Catholic doc- 
trine — Real doctrine of the Church, defined by the Council of Trent — This 
pure and holy — Violent distortion of Christ's words concerning the forgive- 
ness of sins, by Bishop Porteus — Opposite doctrine of Chillingworth : and 
of Luther and the Lutherans : and of the Established Liturgy — Inconsis- 
tency of Bishop Porteus — Refutation of his arguments about confession : 
and of his assertions concerning the ancient doctrine — Impossibility of im- 
posing this practice on mankind if not divine — Testimony of Chillingworth 
as to the comfort and benefit of a good confession ,„ 247 

Let. XLII. — Indulgences — False definition of them by the Bishop of Loi> 



10 



CONTENTS. 



don — His further calumnies on the subject — Similar calumnies of other Pro. 
testant Divines — The genuine doctrine of Catholics — No permission to 
commit sin — No pardon of any future sin — No pardon of sin at all — No 
exemption from contrition or doing penance — No transfer of superfluous 
holiness — Retortion of the charge on the Protestant tenet of imputed jus. 
tice — A mere relaxation of temporal punishment — No encouragement of 
vice ; but rather of virtue — Indulgences authorized in all Protestant Socie- 
ties — Proofs of this in the Church of England — Among the Anabaptists — 
Among the ancient and modern Calvinists — Scandalous Bulls, Dispensa- 
tions, and Indulgences of Luther and his disciples 255 

Let. XLIII. — Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead — Weak objection of Dr. 
Porteus against a middle state — Scriptural arguments for it — Dr. Porteus' 
Appeal to Antiquity defeated — Testimonies of Lutherans and English Pre- 
lates in favor of Prayers for the Dead — Eminent modern Protestants, who 
proclaim a Universal Purgatory — Consolations attending the Catholic be- 
lief and practice 261 

Let. XLIV. — Extreme Unction — Clear proof of this Sacrament from Scrip- 
ture — Impiety and inconsistency of the Bishop in slighting this — His Ap- 
peal to Antiquity refuted 268 

Let. XLV. — Antichrist : Impious assertions of Protestants concerning him — 
Their absurd and contradictory systems — Retortion of the charge of Apos- 
tacy — Other charges against the Popedom refuted 270 

Let. XLVI. — The Pope's Supremacy truly stated — His spiritual authority 
proved from Scripture — Exercised and acknowledged in the primitive ages 
— St. Gregory's contest with the Patriarch of Constantinople about the 
title of (Ecumenical — Concessions of eminent Protestants 277 

Let. XLVII. — The language of the Liturgy and Reading the Scriptures — 
Language a matter of discipline — Reasons for the Latin Church retaining 
the Latin language — Wise economy of the Church as to reading the Holy 
Scriptures — Inconsistencies of the Bible Societies 286 

Let. XLVIII. — Various misrepresentations — Canonical and Apochryphal 
books of Scripture — Pretended invention of five new Sacraments — Inten- 
tion of Ministers of the Sacraments — Continence of the Clergy ; recom- 
mended by Parliament — Advantages of fasting — Deposition of Sovereigns 
by Popes far less frequent than by Protestant Reformers — The bishop's 
egregious falsehoods respecting the primitive Church 293 

Let. XLIX. — Religious Persecution — The Catholic Church claims no right 
to inflict sanguinary punishments, but disclaims it — The right of temporal 
Princes and States in this matter — Meaning of Can. 3, Lateran iv. truly 
stated — Queen Mary persecuted as a Sovereign, not as a Catholic — James 
II. deposed for refusing to persecute — Retortion of the charge upon Pro- 
testants the most effectual way of silencing them upon it — Instances of 
persecution by Protestants in every Protestant country : in Germany : in 
Switzerland : at Geneva, and in France : in Holland : in Sweden : in 
Scotland, and in England — Violence and long continuance of it here — 
Eminent loyalty of Catholics — Two circumstances which distinguished the 
persecution exercised by Catholics from that exercised by Protestants 298 

Let. L, — Conclusion — Recapitulation of points proved in these letters — The 
True Rule of Faith : the True Church of Christ — Falsity of the Charges 
alleged against her — An equal moral evidence for the Catholic as for the 
Christian Religion — The former, by the confession of its adversaries, the 
safer side — No security too great where Eternity is at stake ! 313 



THE 



END OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 



PART I. 



"Let those treat you harshly, who are not acquainted with the difficulty 
of attaining to truth and avoiding error. Let those treat you harshly, who 
know not liow hard it is to get rid of old prejudices. Let those treat you 
harshly, who have not learned how very hard it is to purify the interior eye, 
and render it capable of contemplating the sun of the soul, truth. But as to 
ue ; we are far Irom this disposition towards persons who are separated from 
ns, not by errors of their own invention, but by being entangled in those 
of others."' We are so far from this disposition, that we pray to God, that, in 
refuting the false opinions of those whom you follow, not from malice, but im- 
prudence, he would bestow upon us that spirit of peace, which feels no other 
sentiment than charity, no other interest than that of Jesus Christ, no other 
wish but for your salvation." — St. Augustine, Doctor of the Church, A. D. 400, 
contra Ep. Fund. 1. c. ii. 



ON THE RULE OF FAITH ; OR, THE METHOD OF 
FINDING OUT THE TRUE RELIGION. 



LETTER I. 

FROM JAMES BROWN, ESQ., TO THE REV. JOHN MILNER., D.D. 

F.S.A. 

INTRODUCTION. 
New Cottage, near Cressage, Salop, Oct. 13, 1801. 

Reverend sir — 

I should need an ample apology for the liberty I am taking 
in thus addressing you, without having the honor of your ac- 
quaintance, and still more for the heavy task I am endeavoring 
to impose upon you, if I did not consider your public character, 
as a pastor of your religion, and as a writer in defence of it, 
and likewise your personal character for benevolence, which 
has been described to me by a gentleman of your communion, 
Mr. J. C — ne, who is well acquainted with us both. Having 
mentioned this, I need only add, that I write to you in the name 
of a society of serious and worthy Christians of different per- 
suasions, to which society I myself belong, all of whom are as 
desirous as I am, to receive satisfaction from you on certain 



12 



LETTER I. 



doubts, which your late work in answer to Dr. Sturges has sug- 
gested to us.* 

However, in making this request of our society to you, it 
seems proper, reverend sir, that I should bring you acquainted 
with the nature of it, by way of convincing you that it is not 
unworthy of the attention which I am desirous you should pay 
to it. We consist then of above twenty persons, including the 
ladies, who, living at some distance from any considerable 
town, meet together once a week, generally at my habitation 
of New Cottage ; not so much for our amusement and refec- 
tion, as for the improvement of our minds, by reading the best 
publications of the . day which I can procure from my London 
bookseller, and sometimes an original essay written by one of 
the company. 

I have signified that many of us are of different religious 
persuasions : this will be seen more distinctly from the follow- 
ing account of our numbers. Among these, I must mention, in 
the first place, our learned and worthy rector, Dr. Carey. He 
is, of course, of the Church of England ; but like most others 
of his learned and dignified brethren, in these times, he is of 
that free, and, as it is called, liberal turn of mind, as to explain 
away the mysteries and a great many of its other articles, 
which, in my younger days, were considered essential to it. 
Mr. and Mrs. Topham are Methodists of the Predestinarian and 
Antinomian class, while Mr. and Mrs. Askew are mitigated 
Arminian Methodists, of Wesley's connection. Mr. and Mrs. 
Rankin are honest Quakers. Mr. Barker and his children 
term themselves Rational Dissenters, being of the old Presbyte- 
rian lineage, which is now almost universally gone into Socin- 
ianism. I, for my part, glory in being a stanch member of 
our happy establishment, which has kept the golden mean among 
the contending sects, and which, I am fully persuaded, ap- 
proaches nearer to the purity of the apostolic church, than any 
other which has existed since the age of it. Mrs. Brown pro- 
fesses an equal attachment to the church ; yet, being of an in- 
quisitive and ardent mind, she cannot refrain from frequenting 
the meetings, and even supporting the missions of those self- 
created apostles, who are undermining this church on every 
side, and who are nowhere more active than in our seques- 
tered valley. 

With these differences among us, on the most interesting of 
all subjects, we cannot help having frequent religious contro- 
versies : but reason and charity enable us to manage these 

* Letters to a Prebendary, in answer to Reflections on Popery, by the 
Rev, Dr. Sturges, Prebendary and Chancellor of Winchester. 



INTRODUCTION. 



IS 



without any breach, either of good manners or good will to 
each other. Indeed, I believe that we are, one and all, pos- 
sessed of an unfeigned respect and cordial love for Christians 
of every description, one only excepted. Must I name it on the 
present occasion ? Yes, I must, in order to fulfil my commis- 
sion in a proper manner. It is then the church that you, rev- 
erend sir, belong to : which, if any credit is due to the eminent 
divines whose works we are in the habit of reading, and more 
particularly to the illustrious Bishop Porteus in his celebrated 
and standing work, called A BRIEF CONFUTATION OF 
THE ERRORS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME, extracted 
from Archbishop Seeker's FIVE SERMONS AGAINST 
POPERY,* is such a mass of absurdity, bigotry, superstition, 
idolatry, and immorality, that to say we respect and love those 
who obstinately adhere to it, as we do other Christians, would 
seem a compromise of reason, scripture, and virtuous feeling. 

And yet, even of this church we have formed a less revolt- 
ing idea, in some particulars, than we did formerly. This has 
happened from our having just read over your controversial 
work against Dr. Sturges, called LETTERS TO A PRE- 
BENDARY, to which our attention was directed by the notice 
taken of it in the houses of Parliament, and particularly by the 
very unexpected compliment paid to it by that ornament to our 
church, Bishop Horsley. We admit then (at least I, for my 
part, admit) that you have refuted the most odious of the 
charges brought against your religion — namely, that it is ne- 
cessarily, and upon principle, intolerant and sanguinary, re- 
quiring its members to persecute with fire and sword all per- 
sons of a different creed from their own, when this is in their 
power. You have also proved that Papists may be good sub- 
jects to a Protestant sovereign ; and you have shown, by an in- 
teresting historical detail, that the Roman Catholics of this king- 
dom have been conspicuous for their loyalty from the time of 
Elizabeth down to the present time. Still, most of the absurd 
and anti-scriptural doctrines and practices alluded to above, re- 
lating, to the worship of saints and images, to transubstantiation 
and the half communion, to purgatory, arid shutting up the 
Bible, with others of the same nature, you have not, to my re- 
collection, so much as attempted to defend. In a word, I write 
to you, reverend sir, on the present occasion, in the name of 
our respectable society, to ask you whether you fairly give up 
these doctrines and practices of Popery, as untenable ; or other- 

* The Norrisian Professor of Divinity in the university of Cambridge, 
Dr. Hey, speaking of this work, says : " The refutation of the Popish errors 
is now reduced into a small compass by Archbishop Seeker and Bishop Por. 
tew." —Lectures in Divinity, Vol. IV. p. 71. 

2 



14 



ESSAY I. 



wise, whether you will condescend to interchange a few letters 
with me on the subject of them, for the satisfaction of me and 
my friends, and with the sole view of mutually discovering and 
communicating religious truths. We remark that you say in 
your first letter to Dr. Sturges, " Should I have occasion to 
make another reply to you, I will try if it be not possible to 
put the whole question at issue between us into such a shape 
as shall remove the danger of irritation on both sides, and still 
enable us, if we are mutually so disposed, to agree together in 
the acknowledgment of the same religious truths." If you 
still think that this is possible, for God's sake, and your neigh- 
bor's sake, delay not to undertake it. The plan embraces 
every advantage we wish for, and excludes every evil we de- 
precate. You shall manage the discussion in your own way, 
and we will give you as little interruption as possible. Two 
of the essays above alluded to, with which our worthy rector 
lately furnished us, I will, with your permission, enclose, to 
convince you that genius and sacred literature are cultivated 
round the Wrekin, and on the banks of the Severn. 

I remain, reverend sir, with great respect, 

Your faithful and obedient servant, 

James Brown. 



ESSAY I. 

ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, AND OF NATURAL 
RELIGION. 

BY THE REV. SAMUEL CAREY, LL.D. 

Foreseeing that my health will not permit me, for a consid- 
erable time, to meet my respected friends at New Cottage, I 
comply with the request, which several of them have made me, 
in sending them in writing, my ideas on the two noblest sub- 
jects which can occupy the mind of man : the existence of God, 
and the truth of Christianity. In doing this, I profess rjot to 
make new discoveries, but barely to state certain arguments, 
which I collected in my youth, from the learned Hugo Grotius, 
our own judicious Clarke, and other advocates of natural and 
revealed religion. I offer no apology for adopting the words of 
Scripture, in arguing with persons who are supposed not to ad- 
mit its authority, when these express my meaning as fully a3 
any others can do. 

The first argument for the existence of God is thus expressed 
by the royal prophet : " Know ye that the Lord he is God : it 
is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves." Ps. c. 3. In 



ESSAY I. 



IS 



fact, when I ask myself that question, which every reflecting 
man must sometimes ask himself : How came I into this state of 
existence ? Who has bestowed upon me the being which I enjoy ? 
I am forced to answer, It is not I that made myself; and each 
of my forefathers, if asked the same question, must have re- 
turned the same answer. In like manner, if I interrogate the 
several beings with which I am surrounded ; the earth, the air, 
the water, the stars, the moon, the sun, each of them, as an an- 
cient father says, will answer me in its turn : It was not I that 
made you ; I, like you, am a creature of yesterday, as incapable 
of giving existence to you, as I am of giving it to myself In 
short, however often each of us repeats the questions : How 
came I hither ? Who has made me what I am ? we shall never 
find a rational answer to them, till we come to acknowledge 
that there is an eternal, necessary, self existent Being, the author 
of all contingent beings, which is no other than GOD. It is 
this necessity of being, this self existence, which constitutes the 
nature of God, and from which all his other perfections flow. 
Hence, when he deigned to reveal himself on the flaming moun- 
tain of Horeb, to the holy legislator of his chosen people, 
being asked by this prophet, what was his proper name ; he an- 
swered : "I AM THAT I AM." Exod. iii. 14. This is as 
much as to say : I alone exist of myself ; all others are created 
beings, which exist by my will. 

From this attribute of self existence, all the other perfections 
of the Deity, eternity, immensity, omnipotence, omniscience, holi- 
ness, justice, mercy, and bounty, each in an infinite degree, ne- 
cessarily flow ; because there is nothing to limit his existence 
and attributes, and because, whatever perfection is found in any 
created being, must, like its existence, have been derived from 
this universal source. 

This proof of the existence of God, though demonstrative 
and self-evident to reflecting beings, is, nevertheless, we have 
reason to fear, lost on a great proportion of our fellow-crea- 
tures ; because they hardly reflect at all ; or, at least, never 
consider Who made them, or what they were made for. But that 
other proof, which results from the magnificence, the beauty, 
and the harmony of the creation, as it falls under the senses, 
so it cannot be thought to escape the attention of the most stupid 
or savage of rational beings. The starry heavens, the fulmi- 
nating clouds, the boundless ocean, the variegated earth, the 
organized human body ; all these, and many other phenomena 
of nature, must strike the mind of the untutored savage, no 
less than that of the studious philosopher, with a conviction 
that there is an infinitely powerful, wise, and bountiful Being, 
who is the author of these things : though, doubtless, the latter, 



16 



ESSAY r. 



in proportion as he sees more clearly and extensively than the 
former, the properties and economy of different parts of the 
creation, possesses a stronger physical evidence, as it is called, 
of the existence of the Great Creator. In fact, if the pagan 
physician, Galen,* from the imperfect knowledge which he 
possessed of the structure of the human body, found himself 
compelled to acknowledge the existence of an infinitely wise 
and beneficent being, to make the body such as it is ; what 
would he not have said, had he been acquainted with the cir- 
culation of the blood, and the use and harmony of the arteries, 
veins, and lacteals ? If the philosophical orator, Tully, dis- 
covered and enlarged on the same truth, from the little know- 
ledge of astronomy which he possessed,* what strains of elo- 
quence would he not have poured forth upon it, had he been 
acquainted with the discoveries of Galileo and Newton, rela- 
tive to the magnitude and distances of the stars, the motions of 
the planets and the comets 1 Yes, all nature proclaims that 
there is a Being who is wise in heart and mighty in strength : — 
who doeth great things and past finding out ; yea, wonders without 
number : — ivho streicheth out the north over the empty places, and 
hangeth the earth upon nothing. — The pillars of heaven tremble 
and are astonished at his reproof. — Lo ! these are a part of his 
ways ; but how little a portion is heard of him ! The thunder 
of his power who can understand ! Job, ix. — xxvi. 

The proofs, however, of God's existence, which can least be 
evaded, are those which come immediately home to a man's 
own heart ; convincing him, with the same evidence which he 
has of his own existence, that there is an all-seeing, infinitely 
just, and infinitely bountiful Master above, who is witness of 
all his actions and words, and of his very thoughts. For 
* whence arises the heartfelt pleasure which the good man feels 
on resisting a secret temptation to sin, or in performing an act 
of beneficence, though in the utmost secrecy ? Why does he 
raise his countenance to heaven with devotion, and why is he 
prepared to meet death with cheerful hope, unless it be, that 
his conscience tells him of a munificent rewarder of virtue, the 
spectator of what he does 1 And why does the most hardened 
sinner tremble and falter in his limbs and at his heart, when he 
commits his most secret sins of theft, vengeance, or impurity ? 
Why, especially, does he sink into agonies of horror and de- 
spair at the approach of death, unless it be, that he is deeply 
convinced of the constant presence of an all-seeing witness, 
and of an infinitely holy, powerful, and just judge, into whose 
hands it is a terrible thing to fall f In vain does he say : Dark- 



* De Usu Partium, 



t De Natura Deorum, 1. ii. 



ESSAY I. 



17 



ness encompasseth me and the walls cover me j no one seeth : of 
whom am I afraid ? — for his conscience tells him that, " The 
eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun, beholding round 
about all the ways of men." Ecclus. xxiii. 26, 28. 

This last argument in particular, is so obvious and convin- 
cing, that I cannot bring myself to believe there ever was a 
human being, of sound sense, who was really an atheist. 
Those persons who have tried to work themselves into a per- 
suasion that there is no God, will generally be found, both in 
ancient and modern times, to be of the most profligate manners; 
who, dreading to meet him as their judge, try to persuade 
themselves that he does not exist. This has been observed by 
St. Augustin, who says: "No man denies the existence of 
God, but such a one whose interest it is that there should be no 
God." Yet even they who, in the broad daylight, and among 
their profligate companions, pretend to disbelieve the existence 
of a Supreme Being ; in the darkness of the night, and still 
more, under the apprehension of death, fail not to confess it, as 
Seneca, I think, has somewhere observed.* 

"A son heareth his father, and a servant his master," says 
the prophet Malachi. " If then I be a father, where is mine 
honor ? and if I be a master, where is my fear ? saith the Lord 
of Hosts," i. 6. In a word, it is impossible to believe in the 
existence of a Supreme Being, our Creator, our Lord, and our 
Judge, without being conscious, at the same time, of our obli- 
gation to worship him interiorly and exteriorly ; to fear him, 
to love him, and to obey him. This constitutes natural religion ; 
by the observance of which the ancient patriarchs, together 
with Mechisedec, Job, and, we trust, very many other virtuous 
and religious persons of different ages and countries, have 
been acceptable to God in this life, and have attained to ever- 
lasting bliss in the other : still we must confess, with deep sor- 
row, that the number of such persons has been small, compared 
with those of every age and nation, who, as St. Paul says : 
" When they knew God, glorified him not as God ; neither 
were they thankful, but became vain in their imaginations ; 
and their foolish hearts were darkened : they changed the 
truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature 
more than the Creator, who is blessed for evermore." Rom. i. 
21, 25. Samuel Carey. 

* It is proper here to observe, that a large proportion of the boasting athe- 
ists who signalized themselves by their impiety during the French Revolu- 
tion, or a few years previous to its eruption, acknowledged when they came 
to die, that their irreligion had been affected, and that they never doubted in 
their hearts of the existence of God and the truths of Christianity. Among 
these were the Marquis d'Argens, Boulanger, La Metrie, Collot d'Herbois, 
Egalitie', Duke of Orleans, &c. 



18 



ESSAY II. 



ESSAY II. 
ON THE TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 

BY THE REV. SAMUEL CAREY, LL.D. 

Though the light of nature is abundantly sufficient, as I trust 
I have shown in my former essay, to prove the existence of 
God, and the duty of worshipping and serving him, yet this was 
not the only light that was communicated to mankind in the 
first ages of the world, concerning these matters, since many 
things relating to them were revealed by God to the patriarchs, 
and, through them, to their contemporaries and descendants. 
At length, however, this knowledge was almost universally ob- 
literated from the minds of men, and the light of reason itself 
was so clouded by the boundless indulgence of their passions, 
that they seemed, everywhere, sunk almost to a level with the 
brute creation. Even the most polished nations, the Greeks 
and the Romans, blushed not at unnatural lusts, and boasted of 
the most horrid cruelties. Plutarch describes the celebrated 
Grecian sages, Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Cebes, &c, as in- 
dulging freely in the former ;* and every one knows that the 
chief amusement of the Roman people, was to behold their fel- 
low-creatures murdering one another in the amphitheatres, 
sometimes by hundreds and thousands at a time. But the de- 
pravity and impiety of the ancient pagans, and I may say the 
same of those of modern times, appear chiefly in their reli- 
gious doctrines and worship. What an absurd and disgusting 
rabble of pretended deities, marked with every crime that dis- 
graces the worst of mortals, lust, envy, hatred, and cruelty, did 
not the above-named refined nations worship ; and that, in sev- 
eral instances, by the imitation of their crimes ! Plato allows 
of drunkenness in honor of the gods ; < Aristotle admits of inde- 
cent representations of them. How many temples were every, 
where erected, and prostitutes consecrated to the worship of 
Venus !f And how generally were human sacrifices offered 
up in honor of Moloch, Saturn, Thor, Diana, Woden, and other 
pretended gods, or rather real demons, by almost every pagan 
nation, Greek and barbarian, and among the rest, by the an- 
cient Britons, inhabitants of this island ! It is true, some few 
sages of antiquity, by listening to the dictates of nature and 
reason, saw into the absurdity of the popular religion, and dis- 

* De Tsid. et Osirid. Even the refined Cicero and Virgil did not blush at 

these infamies. 

t Strabo tells us, that there were ] ,000 prostitutes attached to the temple 
of Venus, at Corinth. The Athenians attributed the preservation of their 
city to the prayers of its prostitutes. 



ESSAY II. 



19 



covered the existence and attributes of the true God ; but then 
how unsteady and imperfect was their belief, even in this 
point ! and when " they knew God, they did not glorify him as 
God, nor give him thanks, but became vain in their thoughts." 
Rom. i. 21. In short, they were so bewildered on the whole 
subject of religion, that Socrates, the wisest of them all, de- 
clared it " impossible for men to discover this, unless the Deity 
himself deigned to reveal it to them."* Indeed it was an effort 
of mercy, worthy the great and good God, to make such a rev- 
elation of himself, and of his acceptable worship, to poor, be- 
nighted, and degraded man. This he did, first, in favor of a 
poor afflicted, captive tribe on the banks of the Nile, the Israel- 
ites, whom he led from thence into the country of their ances- 
tors, and raised up to be a powerful nation, by a series of 
astonishing miracles ; instructing and confirming them in the 
knowledge and worship of himself by his different prophets. 
He afterwards did the same thing in favor of all the people of 
the earth, and to a far greater extent, by the promised Messiah, 
and his apostles. It is to this latter Divine legation I shall 
here confine my arguments : though, indeed, the one confirms 
the other ; since Christ and the apostles continually bear testi- 
mony to the mission of Moses. 

All history, then, and tradition prove, that in the reign of Ti- 
berius, the second Roman emperor after Julius Csesar, an ex- 
traordinary personage, Jesus Christ, appeared in Palestine, 
teaching a new system of religion and morality, far more sub- 
lime and perfect than any which the pagan philosophers or 
even the Hebrew prophets had inculcated. He confirmed the 
truths of natural religion and of the Mosaic revelation ; but 
then he vastly extended their sphere, by the communication of 
many heavenly mysteries, concerning the nature of the one true 
God, his economy in redeeming man by his own vicarious 
sufferings, the restoration and future immortality of our bodies, 
and the final, decisive trial we are to undergo before him, our 
destined Judge. He enforced the obligation of loving our 
heavenly Father above all things, of praying to him continually, 
and of referring all our thoughts, words, and actions, to his di- 
vine honor. He insisted on the necessity of denying, not merely 
one or other of our passions, as the philosophers had done, who, 
as Tertullian says, drove out one nail with another ; but the 
whole collection of them, disorderly and vitiated as they are, 
since the fall of our first parents. In opposition to our innate 
avarice, pride, and love of pleasure, he opened his mission by 
teaching that, Blessed are the poor in spirit ; Blessed are the 



* Plato, Dialog, Alcibiad, 



20 ESSAY II. 

meek ; Blessed are they that mourn, 8fC Teaching, as he did, 
with respect to our fellow-creatures, every social virtue, he sin- 
gled out fraternal charity for his peculiar and characteristic 
precept ; requiring that his disciples should love one another as 
they love themselves, and even as he himself has loved them ; 
he who laid down his life for them ! and he extended the obli- 
gation of this precept to our enemies, equally with our friends. 

Nor was the morality of Jesus a mere speculative system of 
precepts, like the systems of the philosophers : it was of a prac- 
tical nature, and he himself confirmed, by his example, every 
virtue which he inculcated, and more particularly that hardest 
of all others to reduce to practice, the love of our enemies. 
Christ had gone about, as the sacred text expresses it, doing 
good to all, Acts, x. 38, and evil to no one. He had cured the 
sick of Judea and the neighboring countries, had given sight 
to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and even life to the dead ; but, 
above all things, he had enlightened the minds of his hearers 
with the knowledge of pure and sublime truths, capable of 
leading them to present and future happiness : yet was he 
everywhere calumniated and persecuted, till at length, his in- 
veterate enemies fulfilled their malice against him, by nailing 
him to a cross, thereon to expire, by lengthened torments. Not 
content with this, they came before his gibbet, deriding him in 
his agony with insulting words and gestures ! And what is the 
return which the author of Christianity makes for such unex- 
ampled affronts and barbarity ? He excuses the perpetrators 
of them ! He prays for them ! " Father, forgive them : for 
they know not what they do !" Luke, xxiii. 34. No wonder 
this proof of supernatural charity should have staggered the most 
hardened infidels ; one of whom confesses that, " if Socrates 
has died like a philosopher, Jesus alone has died like a God !"* 
The precepts and the example of the master have not been lost 
upon his disciples. These have ever been distinguished by 
their practice of virtue, and particularly by their charity and 
forgiveness of injuries. The first of them who laid down his 
life for Christ, St. Stephen, while the Jews were stoning him to 
death, prayed thus with his last voice : "Lord, lay not this sin 
to their charge !" Acts, vii. 60. 

Having considered the several systems of paganism, which 
have prevailed, and that still prevail in different parts of the 
world, both as to belief and practice, together with the specula- 
tions of the wisest infidel philosophers concerning them ; and 
having contemplated, on the other hand, the doctrine of the 
New Testament, both as to theory and practice ; I would ask 



* Rousseau, Emile, 



SSSAY n. 



21 



any candid unbeliever, where he thought Jesus Christ could 
have acquired the idea of so sublime, so pure, so efficacious a 
religion, as Christianity is ; especially when compared with the 
others above alluded to ? Could he have acquired it in the 
workshop of a poor artisan of Nazareth, or among the fisher- 
men of the lake of Genezareth ? Then, how could he and his 
poor unlettered apostles succeed in propagating this religion, as 
they did, throughout the world, in opposition to all the talents 
and power of philosophers and princes, and all the passions 
of all mankind ? No other answers can be given to these 
questions, than that the religion itself has been divinely revealed, 
ind that it has been divinely assisted in its progress throughout 
the world. 

In addition to this internal evidence of Christianity, as it is 
called, there are external proofs which must not be passed over. 
Christ, on various occasions, appealed to the miracles which he 
wrought, in confirmation of his doctrine and mission ; miracles 
public and indisputable, which, from the testimony of Pilate 
himself, were placed on the records of the Roman empire,* and 
which were not denied by the most determined enemies of 
Christianity, such as Celsus, Porphyrius, and Julian, the apos- 
tate. Among these miracles, there is one of so extraordinary a 
nature, as to render it quite unnecessary to mention any others, 
and which is therefore always appealed to by the apostles, as 
the grand proof of the gospel they preached ; I mean the resur* 
rection of Christ from the dead. To the fact itself must be add- 
ed also its circumstances ; namely, that he raised himself to life 
by his own power, without the intervention of any living person ; and 
that he did this in conformity with his prediction, at the time which 
he had appointed for this event to take place, and in defiance of 
the efforts of his enemies to detain his body in the sepulchre. 
To elude the evidence resulting from this unexampled prodigy, 
one or other of the following assertions must be maintained ; 
either that the disciples were deceived in believing him to be 
risen from the dead, or that they combined to deceive the world 
into a belief of that imposition. Now it cannot be credited 
that they themselves were deceived in this matter, being many 
in number, and having the testimony of their eyes, in seeing 
their master repeatedly during forty days ; of their ears in 
hearing his voice ; and one, the most incredulous among them, 
the testimony of his feeling, in touching his person and probing 
his wounds. Nor can it be believed that they conspired to 
propagate an unavailing falsehood of this nature throughout the 
nations of the earth ; namely, that a person, put to death in 

t Tertul. in Apolog. 



ESSAY II. 



Judea, had risen again to life : — and this too, without any pros- 
pect to themselves for this world, but that of persecution, tor- 
ments, and a cruel death, which they successively endured, as 
did their numerous disciples after them, in testimony of this 
fact ; without any expectation for the other world, but the ven- 
geance of the God of truth. 

Next to the miracles wrought by Christ, is the fulfilment of 
the ancient prophecies concerning him, in proof of the religion 
which he taught. To mention a few of these : He was born 
just after the sceptre had departed from the tribe of Juda, Gen. 
xlix. 10 ; at the end of seventy weeks of years from the restora- 
tion of Jerusalem, Dan. ix. 24 ; while the second temple of Je- 
rusalem was in being, Hagg. ii. 7. He was born in Bethle- 
hem, Mic. v. 2; worked the identical miracles foretold of him, 
Isai. xxxv. 5. He was sold by his perfidious disciple for thirty 
pieces of silver, which were laid out in the purchase of a po'ter's 
field, Zech. xi. 13. He was scourged, spit upon, Isai. 1. 6; 
placed among malefactors, Isai. xxxiii. 12. His hands and feet 
were transfixed with nails, Ps. xxii. 16 ; and his side was opened 
with a spear, Zech. xii. 10. Finally, he died, was buried with 
honor, Isai. liii. 9 ; and rose again to life without experiencing 
corruption, Ps. xvi. 10. The sworn enemies of Christ, the Jews, 
were, during many hundred years before his coming, and still 
are, in possession of the Scriptures, containing these and many 
other predictions concerning him, which were strictly fulfilled. 

The very existence, and other circumstances respecting this 
extraordinary people, the Jews, are so many arguments in 
proof of Christianity. They have now subsisted, as a distinct 
people, for more than four thousand years, during which they 
have again and again been subdued, harassed, and almost ex- 
tirpated. Their mighty conquerors, the Philistines, the Assyr- 
ians, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Syrians, and the Ro- 
mans, have in their turns ceased to exist, and can nowhere be 
found as distinct nations; while the Jews exist in great num- 
bers, and are known in every part of the world. How can this 
be accounted for ? Why has God preserved them alone, 
amongst the ancient nations of the earth ? The truth is, they 
are still the subject of prophecy, with respect to both the Old 
and the New Testament. They exist as monuments of God's 
wrath against them ; as witnesses to the truth of the Scriptures 
which condemn them ; and as the destined subjects of his final 
mercy before the end of the world. They are to be found in 
every quarter of the globe ; but in the condition with which 
their great legislator Moses threatened them, if they forsook 
the Lord ; namely, that he would remove them into all the king- 
doms of the earth, Deut. xxviii. 25, that they should become an 



PRELIMINARIES. 



28 



astonishment, and a by-word among all nations, ibid. 37, and that 
they should find no ease, neither should the sole of their foot have 
rest, ibid. 63. Finally, they are everywhere seen, but carry- 
ing, written on their foreheads, the curse which they pronounced 
on themselves, in rejecting the Messiah ; " His blood be upon 
us and upon our children I" Matt, xxvii. 25. Still is this ex- 
traordinary people preserved, to be, in the end, converted, and 
to find mercy. Rom. xi. 26, &c. 

Samuel Carey. 



LETTER D.— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ,., &c 
PRELIMINARIES. 

Winton, October, 20, 1801. 

Dear sir — 

You certainly want no apology for writing to me on the sub- 
ject of your letter. For if, as St. Peter inculcates, each 
Christian ought to be " ready always to give an answer to every 
man that asketh a reason of the hope that is in him," 1 Pet. iii. 
15, how inexcusable would a person of my ministry and com- 
mission be, who am a " debtor both to the Greeks and to the 
barbarians, both to the wise and the unwise," Rom. i. 14, were 
1 unwilling to give the utmost satisfaction, in my power, respect- 
ing the Catholic religion, to any human being, whose inquiries 
appear to proceed from a serious and candid mind, desirous of 
discovering and embracing religious truth, such as I must be- 
lieve yours to be 1 And yet this disposition is exceedingly rare 
among Christians. Infinitely the greater part of them, in 
choosing a system of religion, or in adhering to one, are guided 
by motives of interest, worldly honor, or convenience. These 
inducements not only rouse their worst passions, but also blind 
their judgment ; so as to create hideous phantoms to their in- 
tellectual eyes, and to hinder them from seeing the most con- 
spicuous objects which stand before them. To such inconsis- 
tent Christians nothing proves so irritating as the attempt to dis- 
abuse them of their errors, except the success of that attempt, 
by putting it out of their power to defend them any longer. 
These are they, and O ! how infinite is their number, of whom 
Christ says, " They love darkness better than light," John, iii. 
16 ; and who say to the prophets, " Prophesy not unto us right 
things : speak unto us smooth things," Isai. xxx 10. They 
form to themselves a false conscience, as the Jews did when 
they murdered their Messiah, Acts, iii. 17 ; and as he himself 
foretold that many others would do, in murdering his disciples, 
John, xvi. 2. And here permit me to observe, that I myself 
have experienced something of this spirit in my religious dis- 



24 



LETTER II. 



cussions, with persons who have been loudest in professing their 
candor and charity. Hence, I make no doubt, if the elucida- 
tion which you call for at ray hands, for your numerous society, 
should happen by any means to become public, that I shall 
have to " eat the bread of affliction, and drink the water of 
tribulation," 1 Kings, xxii. 27, for this discharge of my duty, 
perhaps during the remainder of my life. But, as the apostle 
writes, " None of these things move me ; neither count I my life 
dear to me, so that I may finish my course with joy, and the minis- 
try which I have received of the Lord Jesus." Acts, xx. 24. 

It remains, sir, to settle the conditions of our correspondence. 
What I propose is, that, in the first place, we should mu- 
tually, and indeed all of us who are concerned in this friendly 
controversy, be at perfect liberty, without offence to any one, to 
speak of doctrines, practices, and persons, in the manner we 
may judge the most suitable for the discovery of truth: secondly, 
that we should be disposed, in common, as far as poor human nature 
will permit, to investigate truth with impartiality ; to acknowledge 
it, when discovered, with candor; and, of course, to renounce 
every error and unfounded prejudice that may be detected, on 
any side, whatever may be the sacrifice or the cost. I, for my 
part, dear sir, here solemnly promise, that I will publicly re- 
nounce the religion of which I am a minister, and will induce 
as many of my flock, as I may be able to influence, to do the 
same, should it prove to be that " mass of absurdity, bigotry, 
superstition, idolatry, and immorality," which you, sir, and 
most Protestants conceive it to be ; nay, even if I should not 
succeed in clearing it of these respective charges. To reli- 
gious controversy, when originating in its proper motives, a de- 
sire of serving God and securing our salvation, I cannot declare 
myself an enemy, without virtually condemning the conduct 
of Christ himself, who, on every occasion, arraigned and refuted 
the errors of the Pharisees : but I cannot conceive any hy- 
pocrisy so detestable as that of mounting the pulpit or employing 
the pen on sacred subjects, to seiwe our temporal interests, our 
resentment, or our pride, under pretext of promoting or defend- 
ing religious truth. To inquirers in the former predicament, 
I hold myself a debtor, as I have already said ; but the cir- 
cumstances must be extraordinary, to induce me to hold a com- 
munication with persons in the latter. Lastly, as you appear, 
sir, to approve of the plan I spoke of in my first letter to Dr. 
Sturges, I mean to pursue it on the present occasion. This, 
however, will necessarily throw back the examination of your 
charges to a considerable distance, as several other important 
inquiries must precede it. — I am, &c, 

John Milner. 



DISPOSITIONS. 



25 



LETTER III. 

FROM JAMES BROWN, ESQ., TO THE REV. JOHN MILNER, D.D. 

PRELIMINARIES. 

New Cottage, October 30, 1801. 

Reverend sir — 

I have been favored, in due course, with yours of the 20th 
instant, which I have communicated to those persons of our so- 
ciety whom I have had an opportunity of seeing. No circum- 
stance could strike us with greater sorrow, than that you should 
suffer any inconvenience from your edifying promptness to 
comply with our well-meant request, and we confidently trust 
that nothing of the kind will take place through any fault com- 
mitted by us. We agree with you, as to the necessity of per- 
fect freedom of speech, where the discovery of important truths 
is the real object of inquiry. Hence, while we are at liberty 
to censure many of your popes and other clergy, Mr. Topham 
will not be offended with any thing that you can prove against 
Calvin, nor will Mr. Rankin quarrel with you for exposing the 
faults of George Fox and James Naylor, nor shall I complain 
of you for any thing that you may make out against our ven- 
erable Latimer or Cranmer ; I say the same of doctrines and 
practices as of persons. If you are guilty of idolatry, or we 
of heresy, we are respectively unfortunate, and the greatest 
act of charity we can perform is to point out to each other the 
danger of our respective situations to their full extent. Not to 
renounce error and embrace truth of 'every kind, when we 
clearly see it, would be folly ; and to neglect, doing this, when 
the question is concerning religious truth, would be folly and 
wickedness combined together. Finally, we cheerfully leave 
you to follow what course you please, and to whatever extent 
you please, provided only that you give us such satisfaction as 
you are capable of affording, on the subjects which I mentioned 
in my former letter.— -I am, reverend sir, &c, 

James Brown. 



LETTER IV.— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c. 

DISPOSITIONS FOR RELIGIOUS INQUIRY. 
Dear sir — - 

The dispositions which you profess, on the part of your 
friends as well as yourself, I own, please me, and animate me 
to undertake the task you impose upon me. Nevertheless, 

3 



26 



LETTER IV. 



availing myself of the liberty of speech which you and your 
friends allow me, I am compelled to observe, that there is no- 
thing in which men are more apt to labor under a deiusion, 
than by imagining themselves to be free from religious preju- 
dices, sincere in seeking after, and resolved to embrace the 
truth of religion, in opposition to their preconceived opinions 
and worldly interests. How many imitate Pilate, who, when 
he had asked our Saviour the question, What is truth ? pres- 
ently went out of his company before he could receive an an- 
swer to it! John, xviii. 38. How many others resemble the 
rich young man, who, having interrogated Christ, " What 
good things shall T do that I may have eternal life ?" when this 
Divine Master answered him, " If thou wilt be perfect, go and 
sell what thou hast and give to the poor ; — went away sorrow- 
ful !" Matt. xix. 22. Finally, how many more act like cer- 
tain presumptuous disciples of our Lord, who, when he had 
propounded to them a mystery beyond their conception, that of 
the real presence, in these words, " My flesh is meat indeed, 
and my blood is drink indeed — said, "This is a hard saying ; 
who can hear it ? — and went back and walked no more with 
him !" John, vi. 56. O ! if all Christians, of the different 
sects and opinions, were but possessed of the sincerity, disin- 
terestedness, and earnestness to serve their God and save their 
souls, which a Francis Walsingham, kinsman to the great 
statesman of that name ; a Hugh Paulin Cressy, Dean of Leigh- 
lin and Prebendary of Windsor ; and an Antony Ulric, Duke 
of Brunswick and Lunenburgh, proved themselves to have 
been possessed of, the first in his Search into Matters of Religion, 
the second in his Exomologesis, or Motives of Conversion, &c, 
and the last in his Fifty Reasons ; how soon would all and 
every one of our controversies cease, and all of us be united in 
one faith, hope, and charity ! I will here transcribe, from the 
preface to the Fifty Reasons, what the illustrious relative of his 
majesty says, concerning the dispositions with which he set 
about inquiring into the grounds and differences of the several 
systems of Christianity, when he be began to entertain doubts 
concerning the truth of that in which he had been educated, 
namely, Lutheranism. He says — " First, I earnestly implored 
the aid and grace of the Holy Ghost, and with all my power 
begged the light of true faith, from God, the Father of lights, &c. 
Secondly, I made a strong resolution, by the grace of God, to avoid 
sin, well knowing that ' Wisdom will not enter into a corrupt 
mind, nor dwell in a body subject to sin,' Wisd. i. 4, and I 
am convinced, and was so then, that the reason why so many 
are ignorant of the true faith, and do not embrace it, is, be- 
cause they are plunged in several vices; and particularly car- 



■METHOD* 



27 



nal sins. Thirdly, I renounced all sorts of prejudices, what- 
ever they were, which incline men to one religion more than 
another, and which, unhappily, I might formerly have espoused ; 
and I brought myself to a perfect indifference, so as to be ready 
to embrace whichsoever the grace of the Holy Ghost, and the 
light of rea.son should point out to me, without any regard to 
the advantages and inconveniences that might attend it in this 
world. Lastly, I entered upon this deliberation and this choice, 
in the manner I should have wished to have done it at the hour 
of my death, and in a full conviction that, at the day of judg- 
ment, I must give an account to God why I followed this reli- 
gion in preference to all the rest." The princely inquirer 
finishes this account of himself with the following awful reflec- 
tions. " Man has but one soul, which will be eternally either 
damned or saved. ' What doth it avail a man to gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul V Matt. xvi. 26. Eternity 
knows no end. The course of it is perpetual. It is v a series of 
unlimited duration. There is no comparison between things 
infinite and those which are net so. O ! the happiness of the 
eternity of the saints ! O ! the wretchedness of the eternity of 
the damned ! One of these two eternities awaits us V' 

I remain, sir, yours, &c. 

John Milner* 

LETTER V.— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. 

METHOD OF FINDING OUT THE TRUE RELIGION, 
Dear sir — 

It is obvious to common sense, that in order to find out 
any hidden thing, or to do any difficult thing, we must 
first discover, and then follow the proper method for such 
purpose. If we do not take the right road to any distant 
place, it cannot be expected that we should arrive at it. 
If we get hold of a wrong clue, we shall never extricate 
ourselves from a labyrinth. Some persons choose their reli- 
gion as they do their clothes, by fancy. They are pleased, for 
example, with the talents of a preacher, when presently they 
adopt his creed. Many adhere to their religious system, merely 
because they were educated in it, and because it was that of 
their parents and family ; which, if it were a reasonable mo- 
tive for their resolution, would equally excuse Jews, Turks, and 
Pagans, in adhering to their respective impieties, and would 
impeach the preaching of Christ and his apostles. Others 
glory in their religion, because it is the one established in this 
their country, so renowned for science, literature, and arms; 



28 



LETTER V, 



not reflecting that the polished and conquering nations of an 
tiquity, the .Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Ro- 
mans, were left, by the inscrutable judgments of God, in dark- 
ness and in the shadow of death, whilst a poor oppressed and 
despised people, on the banks of the Jordan, were the only de- 
pository of divine truth, and the sole truly enlightened nation. 
But, far the greater part even of Christians, of every denomi- 
nation, make the business of eternity subservient to that of 
time, and profess the religion which suits best with their interest, 
their reputation, and their convenience. I trust that none of 
your respectable society fall under any of these descriptions. 
They all have, or fancy that they have, a rational method of 
discovering religious truth; in other words, an adequate rule 
of faith. Before I enter into any disquisition on this all-im- 
portant controversy concerning the right rule of faith, on which 
the determination of every other depends, I will lay down three 
fundamental maxims, the truth of which, I apprehend, no ra- 
tional Christian will dispute. 

First, Our Divine Master. Christ, in establishing a religion 
"here on earth, to which all the nations of it were invited, Matt, 
xviii. left some RULE or method by which those persons who 
sincerely seek for it, may with certainty fnd it. 

Secondly, This rule or method must he SECURE and never 
failing ; so as not to he ever liable to lead a rational, sincere in- 
quirer into error, impiety, or immorality of any kind. 

Thirdly, This rule or method must he UNIVERSAL, that is 
to say, adapted to the abilities and circumstances of all those per- 
sons for whom the religion itself is intended ; namely, the great 
bulk of mankind. 

By adhering to these undeniable maxims, we shall quickly, 
dear sir, and clearly, discover the method appointed by Christ 
for arriving at the knowledge of the truths which he has taught ; 
in other words, at the right rule of faith. Being possessed of 
this rule, we shall, of course, have nothing else to do than to 
make use of it, for securely, and, I trust, amicably settling all 
our controversies. This is the short and satisfactory method 
of composing religious differences, which I alluded to in my 
above-mentioned letter to Dr. Sturges. To discuss them all, 
separately, is an endless task, whereas this method reduces 
them to a single question. — I am, &c, 

John Milneb. 



FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE. 



29 



LETTER VI. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. 

THE FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE OF FAITH. 
Dear sir — 

Among serious Christians, who profess to make the discovery 
and practice of religion their first and earnest care, three dif- 
ferent methods or rules have been adopted for this purpose. 
The first consists in a supposed private inspiration, or an im. 
mediate light and motion of God's spirit, communicated to the 
individual. This was the rule of faith and conduct formerly- 
professed by the Montanists, the Anabaptists, the Family of 
Love, and is now professed by the Quakers, the Moravians, and 
different classes of the Methodists. The second of these rules, 
is the written word of God, or THE BIBLE, according as it is 
understood by each particular reader or hearer of it. This is the 
professed rule of the more regular sects of Protestants, such as 
the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Socinians, the Church-of- 
England-men. The third rule is THE WORD OF GOD, at 
large, whether written in the Bible, or handed down from the apos- 
tles in continued succession by the Catholic Church, and as it is un- 
derstood and explained by this church. To speak more accu- 
rately, besides their rule of faith, which is scripture and tradition. 
Catholics acknowledge an unerring judge of controversy , or sure 
guide in all matters relating to salvation. — namely, THE 
CHURCH. I shall now proceed to show that the first-men- 
tioned rule, namely, a supposed private inspiration, is totally 
fallacious, inasmuch as it is liable to conduct, and has conducted 
many into acknowledged errors and impiety. 

About the middle of the second age of Christianity, Monta- 
nus, Maximilla, and Priscilla, with their followers, by adopting 
this enthusiastical rule, rushed into the excess of folly and 
blasphemy. They taught that the Holy Spirit, having failed to 
save mankind, by Moses, and afterwards by Christ, had en- 
lightened and sanctified them to accomplish this great work. 
The strictness of their precepts, and the apparent sanctity of their 
lives, deceived many ; till at length, the two former- proved what 
spirit they were guided by, in hanging themselves.* Several other 
heretics became dupes of the same principles in the primitive 
and the middle ages ; but it was reserved for the time of reli- 
gious licentiousness, improperly called the Reformation, to dis- 
play the full extent of its absurdity and impiety. In less than 
five years after Luther had sounded the trumpet of evangelical 
'iberty, the sect of Anabaptists arose in Germany and the Low 



* Euseb. Eccles. Hist. L v. c. 15, 
3* 



80 



LETTER VI. 



Countries. They professed to hold immediate communication 
with God, and to be commanded by him to despoil and kill a 1 ! 
the wicked, and to establish a kingdom of the just,* who to be- 
come such, were all to be re-baptized. Carlostad, Luther's 
first disciple of note, embraced this ultra-reformation ; but its 
acknowledged head, during his reign, was John Bockhold, a 
tailor of Leyden, who proclaimed himself King of Sion, and, 
during a certain time, was really sovereign of Munster, in 
Lower Germany. Here he committed the greatest imaginable 
excesses, marrying eleven wives at a time, and putting them, 
and numberless others of his subjects to death, at the motion 
of his supposed interior spirit.f He declared that God had 
made him a present of Amsterdam and other cities, which he 
sent parties of his disciples to take possession of. These ran 
naked through the streets, howling out, " Wo to Babylon ; wo 
to the wicked and, when they were apprehended, and on the 
point of being executed for their seditions and murders, they 
sang and danced on the scaffold, exulting in the imaginary light 
of their spirit.^ Herman, another Anabaptist, was moved by 
his spirit to declare himself the Messiah, and thus to evangelize 
the people, his hearers : " Kill the priests, kill all the magis- 
trates in the world. Repent: your redemption is at band."§ 
One of their chief and most accredited preachers, David 
George, . persuaded a numerous sect of them, that " the doc- 
trine both of the Old and the New Testament was imperfect, 
but that his own was perfect, and that he was the true Son of 
God.^'W I do not notice these impieties and other crimes for 
their singularity or their atrociousness, but because they were 
committed upon the principle and under a full conviction of an 
individual and uncontrollable inspiration, on the part of their 
dupes and perpetrators. 

Nor has our own country been more exempt from this enthu- 
siastic principle than Germany and Holland. Nicholas, a dis- 
ciple of the above-mentioned David George, came over to Eng- 
land with a supposed commission from God, to teach men that 
the essence of religion consists in the feelings of divine love, 
and that all other things relating either to faith or worship, are 
of no moment. IT He extended this maxim even to the funda- 
mental precepts of morality, professing to continue in sin that 

* " Cum Deo colloquium esse et mandatum habere se dicebant, ut, impiis 
omnibus interfectis, novum constituerent mundum, in quo pii solum et inno. 

centes viverent et rerum potirentur." Sleidan, De Stat. Rel. et Reip* 

Comment. L. hi. p. 45. 

t Hist, abrge*. de la ReTorm. par Gerard Brandt, torn. i. p. 46. Mosheim, 
Eccles. Hist, by Maclaine, vol. iv. p. 452. t Brandt, p. 49, &c. 

§ Idem, p. 51, || Mosheim, vol. iv. p. 484. T Ibid. Brandt, 



FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE. 



81 



grace might abound. His followers, under the name of the 
Familists, or The Family of Love, were very numerous at the end 
of the sixteenth century, about which time, Hacket, a Calvinist, 
giving way to the same spirit of delusion, became deeply per- 
suaded that the spirit of the Messiah had descended upon him ; 
and having made several proselytes, he sent two of them, 
Arthington and Coppinger, to proclaim, through the streets of 
London, that Christ was come thither with his fan in his hand. 
This spirit, instead of being repressed, became still more un- 
governable, at the sight of the scaffold and the gibbet prepared 
in Cheapside for his execution. Accordingly he continued, till 
the last, exclaiming, " Jehovah, Jehovah ; don't you see the 
heavens open and Jesus coming to deliver me V &c* Who 
has not heard of Venner, and his Fifth Monarchy-men ? who, 
guided by the same private spirit of inspiration, rushed from 
their meeting-house in Coleman-street, proclaiming that they 
would " acknowledge no sovereign but King Jesus, and that 
they would not sheath their swords, till they had made Babylon 
(that is, monarchy) a hissing and a curse, not only in England, 
but also throughout foreign countries ; having an assurance 
that one of them would put a thousand enemies to flight, and 
two of them ten thousand." Venner being taken and led to 
execution, with several of his followers, protested " it was not 
he, but Jesus, who had acted as their leader. "f I pass over 
the unexampled follies, and the horrors of the grand rebellion, 
having detailed many of them elsewhere.:}: It is sufficient to 
remark, that while many of these were committed from the li- 
centiousness of private interpretation of Scripture, many others 
originated in the enthusiastic opinion which I am now combat- 
ing, that of an immediate individual inspiration, equal, if not 
superior, to that of the Scriptures themselves. § 

It was in the midst of these religious and civil commotions 
that the most extraordinary people, of all those who have 
adopted the fallacious rule of private inspiration, started up at 
the call of George Fox, a shoemaker of Leicestershire. His 
fundamental propositions, as laid down by the most able of his 
followers, || are: that The Scriptures are not the adequate, pri- 
mary rule of faith and manners, — but a secondary rule, subordi- 
nate to the Spirit, from which they have their excellency and 
certainty :"f that, "the testimony of 'the Spirit is that alone by 

* Fuller's Church Hist. b. ix. p. 113. Stow's Annals, A.D. 1591. 

t Echard's Hist, of Eng., &c. 

t Letters to a Prebendary. Reign of Charles I. 

§ See the remarkable history of military preachers at Kingston. Ibid. 

|| Robert Barclay's Apology for the Quakers. 

T Propos. III. In defending this proposition, Barclay cites some of the 



31 



LETTER VI. 



which the true knowledge of God hath been, is, and can be re- 
vealed:"* "that all true and acceptable worship of God is offered 
in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own 
Spirit, which is neither limited to places, times, nor persons, "-j- 
Such are the avowed principles of the people called Quakers : 
let us now see some of the fruits of those principles, as recorded 
by themselves in their founder and first apostles. 

George Fox tells of himself, that at the beginning of hi3 
mission he was " moved to go to several courts and steeple- 
houses (churches) at Mansfield and other places, to warn them 
to leave off oppression and oaths, and to turn from deceit, and 
to turn to the Lord.":}: On these occasions the language and 
behavior of his spirit was very far from the meekness and re- 
spect for constituted authorities of the Gospel Spirit, as appears 
from different passages in his journal. § He tells us of one of 
his disciples, William Simpson, who was " moved of the Lord 
to go, at several times, for three years, naked and barefoot be- 
fore them, as a sign unto them, in markets, courts, towns, 
cities, to priests' houses, and to great men's houses, telling them, 
so should they all be stripped naked" Another Friend, one 
Robert Huntingdon, was moved of the Lord to go into Carlisle 
steeple-house, with a white sheet about him.|| We are told of 
a female Friend who went " stark naked, in the midst of public 
worship, into Whitehall chapel, when Cromwell was there;" 
and of another woman, who came " into the parliament house 
with a trencher in her hand, which she broke in pieces, saying, 
" Thus shall he be broke in pieces." One of these Friends 
came to the door of the parliament house with a drawn sword, 
and wounded several, saying, " he was inspired by the Holy 
Spirit to kill every man that sat in that house. "1T But in no 

Friends, who being unable to read the Scriptures, even in the vulgar lan- 
guage, and being pressed by their adversaries with passages from it, boldly 
denied, from the manifestation of truth in their own hearts, that such pas. 
sages were contained in the Scripture, p. 82. 

* Propos. II. t Propos. XI. 

t See the Journal of George Fox, written by himself, and published by 
his disciple Penn, son of Admiral Perm, folio, p. 17. 

§ I shall satisfy myself with citing part of his letter, written in 1660, to 
Charles II. — " King Charles, thou earnest not into this nation by sword, nor 
by victory of war, but by the power of the Lord. — And if thou dost bear 
the sword in vain, and let drunkenness, oaths, plays, May-games, with fid- 
dlers, drums, and trumpets to play at them, with such-like abominations and 
vanities, be encouraged, or go unpunished, as setting up of May-poles, with 
the image of the crown a-top of them, the nation will quickly turn, like 
Sodom and Gomorrah, and be as bad as the old world, who grieved the 
Lord till he overthrew them ; and so he will you, if these things be not sud- 
denly prevented," &c. — G. F.'s Journal, p. 225. 

(| Journal, p. 239. IT Machine's note on Mosheim, vol. v. p._470 



FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE. 



33 



occurrence has George Fox and his followers been so embar- 
rassed to save their rule of faith, as they have been to reconcile 
with it the conduct of the noted James Naylor.* When cer- 
tain low and disorderly people, in Hampshire, disgraced their 
society, and became obnoxious to the laws, G. Fox disowned 
them.f but when a Friend, of James Naylor's character and 
services, % became the laughing-stock of the nation, for his pre- 
sumption and blasphemy, there was no other way for the so- 
ciety to separate his cause from their own, but by abandoning 
their fundamental principle, which leaves every man to follow 
the spirit within him, as he himself feels it. The fact is, James 
Naylor, like so many other dupes of a supposed private spirit, 
fancied himself to be the Messiah, and in this character he rode 
into Bristol, his disciples spreading their garments before him, 
and crying, Holy., holy, holy, Hosannah in the highest ! Being 
scourged by order of Parliament, for his impiety, he permitted 
the fascinated women, who followed him, to kiss his feet and his 
wounds, and to hail him " the Prince of Peace, the Rose of 
Sharon, the fairest of ' ten thousand,' " &c.§ 

I pass over many sects of less note, as the Muggletoni- 
ans, the Labbadists, &c, who, by pursuing the meteor of a 
supposed inward light, were led into the most impious and im- 
moral practices. Allied to these are the Moravian Brethren, 
or Hernhutters, so called from Hernhuth, in Moravia, where 
their apostle, Count Zindendorf, made an establishment for them., 
They are now spread over England, with ministers and bishops 
appointed by others resident in Hernhuth. Their rule of faith, 
as laid down by Zindendorf, is an imaginary inward light, 
against which the true believer cannot sin. This they are 
taught to wait for in quiet, omitting prayer, the reading of the 
Scriptures, and other works. || They deny that even the moral 

* See History of the Quakers, by William SeweL folio, p. 138. Journal 
of G. Fox, p. 220. 

f Journal of G. Fox, p. 320. 

t Ibid. p. 220. Sewel's Hist, of Quakers, p. 140. 

§ Echard's Hist. Machine's Mosheim. Neal's Hist, of the Puritans. In 
closing this account of the Quakers we may remark, that there is no appear- 
ance yet of the fulfilment of the confident prophecy with which Barclay 
concludes his Apology : " That little spark (Quakerism) that hath appeared, 
shall grow to the consuming of whatsoever shall stand up to oppose it. The 
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it! Yea; he that hath risen in a small 
remnant, shall arise and go on by the same arm of power in his spiritual 
manifestation, until he hath conquered all his enemies ; until all the king- 
doms of the earth become the kingdom of Jesus Christ." 

|| Wesley, in a letter which he inscribes, "To the Church of God at 
Hernhuth," says, " There are many whom your brethren have advised, 
though not in their public preaching, not to use the Ordinances — reading the 
Scripture, preying, communicating ; as the doing of these things is seeking- 



LETTER VI. 



law contained in the Scriptures is a rule of life for believers. 
Having considered this system in all its bearings, we are the 
less surprised at the disgusting obscenity, mingled with blas- 
phemy, which is to be met with in the theological tracts of the 
German count.* 

The next system of delusion which I shall mention, as pro- 
ceeding from the fatal principle of an interior rule of faith t 
though framed in England, was also the work of a foreign no- 
bleman, the Baron Swedenborgh. His first supposed revelation 
was at an eating-house in London, about the year 1745. "Af- 
ter I had dined," says he, " a man appeared to me sitting in 
the corner of the room, who cried out to me with a terrible 
voice, Don't eat so much. The following night the same man 
appeared to me, shining with light, and said to me, I am the 
Lord, your Creator and Redeemer : I have chosen you to explain 
to men the interior and spiritual sense of the Scriptures : I will 
dictate to you what you are to write.\ His imaginary communi- 
cations with God and the angels were as frequent and familiar 
as those of Mahomed, and his conceptions of heavenly things 
were as gross and incoherent as those of the Arabian impostor. 
Suffice it to say, that his God is a mere man, his angels are 
male and female, who marry together and follow various trades 
and professions. Finally, his New Jerusalem, which is to be- 
spread over the whole earth, is so little different from this sub- 
lunary world, that the entrance to it is imperceptible. % So far 
is true, that the New Jerusalemites are spread throughout 
England, and have chapels in most of its principal towns. § 

salvation by works. Some of our English brethren (Moravians) say: you 
will never have faith till you leave off the church and the sacraments : as 
many go to hell by praying as by thieving." Journal, 1740. — John Nelson 
in his journal tells us, that the Moravians call their religion The Liberty of 
the Poor Sinn er ship ; adding, that they "sell their prayer-books, and leave 
off reading and praying, to follow the Lamb." 

* See Maclaine's Hist. vol. vi. p. 23, and Bishop Warburton's Doctrine of 
Grace, quoted hy him. 

t Barruel's Hist, du Jacobinisme, torn. iv. p. 118. \ Ibid. 

§ Since the above letter was written, another sect, the Joannites, or dis- 
ciples of Joanna Southcote, have risen to notice by their number and the 
singularity of their tenets. This female apostle has been led by her spirit to 
believe herself to be the woman of Genesis, destined to crush the head of the 
infernal spirit, with whom she supposes herself to have had daily battles, to 
the effusion of his blood. She believes herself to be, likewise, the woman 
of the Revelations crowned with twelve stars, which are so many ministers 
of the Established Church. In fact, one of these, a richly beneficed rector, 
and of a noble family, acts as her secretary in writing and sealing passports 
to heaven, which she supposes herself authorized to issue, to the number of 
144,000, at a very moderate price. One of these passports in due form is in 
the writer's possession. It is sealed with three seals. The first exhibits 
two stars, namely, the morning star, to represent Christ, the evening star to 



FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE. 



36 



I am sorry to be obliged to enter upon the same list with 
these enthusiasts, a numerous class, many of them very respect- 
able, of modern religionists, called Methodists ; yet, since their 
avowed system of faith is, that this consists in an instantaneous 
illapse of God's Spirit into the souls of certain persons, by which 
they are convinced of their justification and salvation, without 
reference to Scripture or any other proof, they cannot be placed, 
as to their rule of faith, under any other denomination. This, 
according to their founder's doctrine, is the only article of faith; 
all other articles he terms opinions, of which he says, " the 
Methodists do not lay any stress on them, whether right or 
wrong."* He continues, " I am sick of opinions ; I am weary 
to bear them ; my soul loathes this frothy food."f Conformably 
with this latitudinarian system, Wesley opens heaven indiscrim- 
inately to Churchmen, Presbyterians, Independents, Quakers, 
and even to Catholics. :j: Addressing the last named, he ex- 
claims, " O that God would write in your hearts the rules of 
self-denial and love laid down by Thomas a Kempis ; or that 
you would follow, in this and in good works, the burning and 
shining light of your own church, the Marquis of Renty.§ 
Then would all who know and love the truth, rejoice to acknow- 
ledge you as the church of the living God."|| 

At the first rise of Methodism in Oxford, A.D. 1729, John 
Wesley and his companions were plain, serious, Church-of- 
England-men, assiduous and methodical in praying, reading, 
fasting, and the like. What they practised themselves, they 
preached to others both in England and in America ; till be- 
coming intimate with the Moravian brethren, and particularly 
with Peter Bohler, one of their elders, John Wesley " became 
convinced of unbelief, namely, a want of that faith whereby alone 
we are saved."^ Speaking of his past life and ministry, he 
says, " I was fundamentally a Papist, and knew it not."** 

represent herself. The second seal exhibits the lion of Juda, supposed to 
allude to the insane prophet, Richard Brothers. The third shows the face of 
Joanna herself. Of late her inspiration has taken a new turn : she believes 
herself to be pregnant of the Messiah, and her followers have prepared silver 
vessels of various sorts for his use, when he shall be born. 

* Wesley's Appeal, P. iii. p. 134. t Ibid. p. 135. 

t Appeal. 

§ His life is written in French, by Fere St. Jure, a Jesuit, and abridged 
in English by J. Wesley. 

|| In his Popery Calmly Considered, p. 20, Wesley writes : " I firmly be- 
lieve that many members of the Church of Rome have been holy men, and 
that many are so now." He elsewhere says, " Several of them (Papists) 
have attained to as high a pitch of sanctity, as human nature is capable of 
arriving at." 

T Whitehead's T.ifc pf T hn and Charles Wesley, vol. ii. p. 68. 

•• Journal, A»€k i739.«~ Elsewhere Wesley says? *»0 what a work has 



LETTER VI. 



Soon after this persuasion, namely, on May 24, 1739, " Going 
into a society in Aldersgate-street," he says, " whilst a person 
was reading Luther's preface to the Romans, about a quarter 
before nine, I felt my heart strangely warmed ; I felt I did 
trust in Christ, in Christ alone for salvation, and an assu- 
rance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, 
and saved me from the law of sin and death."* 

What were, now, the unavoidable consequences of a diffu- 
sion of this doctrine among the people at large ? Let us hear 
them from Wesley's most able disciple and destined successor, 
Fletcher of Madeley. " Antinomian principles and practices," 
he says, " have spread like wild-fire among oUr societies. 
Many persons, speaking in the most glorious manner of Christ, 
and their interest in his complete salvation, have been found 
living in the greatest immoralities. — How few of our societies, 
where cheating, extorting, or some other evil hath not broke 
out, and given such shakes to the ark of the Gospel, that, had 
not the Lord interposed, it must have been overset If I have 
seen them who pass for believers, follow the strain of corrupt 
nature ; and when they • should have exclaimed against Anti- 
nomianism, I have heard them cry out against the legality of 
their wicked hearts, which, they said, still suggested that they 
were to DO something for their salvation " How few of our 
celebrated pulpits, where more has not been said for sin than 
against it /§ The same candid writer, laying open the foul- 
ness of his former system, charges Richard Hill, Esq., who 
persisted in it, with maintaining that, "Even adultery and mur- 
der do not hurt the pleasant children, but rather work for their 
good. "|| " God sees no sin in believers, whatever sin they com- 
mit. My sins might displease God ; my person is always ac- 
ceptable to him. Though I should outsin Manasses, I should 
not be less a pleasant child, because God always views me in 

God begun since Peter Bohler came to England ! such a one as shall never 
come to an end, till heaven and earth pass away." 

* Vide Whitehead, vol. ii. p. 79. In a letter to his brother Samuel, John 
Wesley says : " By a Christian I mean one who so believes in Christ, that 
death hath no dominion over him, and in this obvious sense of the word I 
was not a Christian till the 24th of May, last year." Ibid. 105. 

t Checks to Antinom. vol. ii. p. 22. 4 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 200. 

§ Ibid. p. 215. 

|| Fletcher's Works, vol. iii. p. 50. Agricola, one of Luther's first disci 
ciples, is called the founder of the Antinomians. These hold that the faith 
ful are bound by no law, either of God or man, and that good works of 
every kind are. useless to salvation ; while Amsdorf, Luther's pot-companion, 
taught that they are an impediment to salvation. Mosheim's Eccles. Hist 
by Maclaine, vol. iv. p. 35, p. 328. Eaton, a puritan, in his Honeycomb of 
Justification, says : " Believers ought not to mourn for sin, because it was 
pardoned before it was committed." 



FIRST FALLACIOUS IUJLE . 



SI 



Christ. Hence, in the midst of adulteries, murders, and incests, 
he can address me with, ' Thou art all fair, my love, my unde- 
fined, there is no spot in thee.' "* " It is a most pernicious 
error of the schoolmen to distinguish sins according to the fact 
and not according to the person." — " Though I blame those who 
say, let us sin that grace may abound, yet adultery, incest, and 
murder, shall upon the whole, make me holier on earth and mer- 
rier in heaven." \ 

These doctrines and practices, casting great disgrace on 
Methodism, alarmed its founder. He therefore held a synod of 
his chief preachers, under the title of a conference, in which he 
and they unanimously abandoned their past fundamental princi- 
ples, in the following confession which they made. " Quest. 
17. Have we not, unawares, leaned too much to Calvinism. 
Ans. We are afraid we have. Q. 18. Have we not also 
leaned too much to Antinomianism 1 A. We are afraid we 
have. Q. 20. What are the main pillars of it ? A. 1. That 
Christ abolished the moral law : 2. That Christians therefore 
are not obliged to observe it : 3. That one branch of Christian 
liberty is liberty from observing the commandments of God," 
&c4 The publication of this retractation, in 1770, raised the 
indignation of the more rigid Methodists, namely the Whitfield- 
ites, Jumpers, &c, all of whom were under the particular pa- 
tronage of Lady Huntingdon : accordingly her chaplain, the 
Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley, issued a circular letter by her 
direction, calling a general meeting of her connection, as it is 
called, at Bristol, to censure this " dreadful heresy," which, as 
Shirley affirmed, injured the very fundamentals of Christianity. § 

Having exhibited this imperfect sketch of the errors, contra- 
dictions, absurdities, impieties, and immoralities, into which 
numberless Christians, most of them, no doubt, sincere in their 
belief, have fallen, by pursuing phantoms of their imagination 
for Divine illuminations, and adopting a supposed, immediate, 
and personal revelation, as the rule of their faith and conduct, 
I would request any one of your respectable society, who may 
still adhere to it, to re-consider the self-evident maxim laid 
down in the beginning of this letter ; namely, That can- 
not be the rule of faith and conduct which is liable to lead us, and 
has led very many vjell-meaning persons, into error and impiety ; 
I would remind him of his frequent mistakes and illusions re- 
specting things of a temporary nature ; then, painting to his 

* Fletcher, vol. iv. p. 97. 

t Quoted by Fletcher. See also Daubeny's Guide to the Church, p. 82. 
t Apud Whitehead, p. 213. Benson's Apology, p. 208. 
§ Fletcher's Works, vol. ii. p. 5. Whitehead. Nightingale's Portraiture 
of Methodism, p. 463. 

4 



as 



LETTER VII. 



mind the all-importance of ETERNITY, that is, of happiness 
or misery inconceivable and everlasting, I would address him 
in the words of St. Augustin, " What is it that you are trust- 
ing to, poor, weak soul, and blinded with the mists of the flesh : 
what is it you are trusting to V 

John Milner. 



LETTER VII. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c. 

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 

Dear sir — 

I have just received a letter from Friend Rankin of Wenlock, 
written much in the style of George Fox, and another from Mr. 
Ebenezer Topham of Brosely. They both consist of objections 
to my last letter to you, which they had perused at New Cot- 
tage ; and the writers of them both request, that I would ad- 
dress whatever answer I might give them, to your villa. 

Friend Rankin is sententious, yet civil ; he asks, 1st, whether 
" Friends at this day, and in past times, and even the faithful 
servant of Christ, George Fox, have not condemned the vain 
imaginations of James Naylor, Thomas Bushel, Perrot, and the 
sinful doings of many others through whom the word of life 
was blasphemed in their day among the ungodly ?" He asks, 
2dly, whether " numberless follies, blasphemies, and crimes 
have not risen up in the Roman Catholic, as well as in other 
churches V He asks, 3dly, whether " learned Robert Bar- 
clay, in his glorious Apology, hath not shown forth, that The 
testimony of the Spirit is that alone by which the true hioiuledge 
of God hath been, is, and can be revealed and confirmed, and this 
not only by the outward testimony of Scripture, but also by that 
of Tertullian, Hierom, Augustin, Gregory the Great, Bernard, 
yea also by Thomas a Kempis, F. Pacificus Baker,* and many 
others of the Popish communion, who, says Robert Barclay, 
£ have known and tasted the love of God, and felt the power 
and virtue of God's Spirit working within them for their salva- 
tion V "f 

I will first consider the arguments of Friend Rankin. 1 
grant him then, that his founder, George Fox, does blame cer- 
tain extravagancies of Naylor, Perrot, and others his followers, 
at the same time that he boasts of several committed by him- 
self, by Simpson, and others. ± But how does he confute them, 
and guard others against them ? — Why, he calls their authors 

* An English Benedictine monk, author of " Santa Sophia," which is quo. 
ted at length by Barclay. t Apology, p. 351. 

% See Journal of G. Fox, passim. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



39 



Ranters, and charges them with running out/* Now what 
kind of argument is this in the mouth of G. Fox against any- 
fanatic, however furious, when he himself has taught him, that 
he is to listen to the Spirit of God within himself, in preference to 
the authority of any man and of all men, and even of the Gospel ? 
G. Fox was not more strongly moved to believe that he was the 
messenger of Christ, than J. Naylor was to believe that he him- 
self ivas Christ : nor had he a firmer conviction that the Lord 
forbade hat-worship, as it is called, out of prayer, than J. Per- 
rotf and his company had, that they were forbidden to use it in 
prayer.^ 2dly, with respect to the excesses and crimes com- 
mitted by many Catholics of different ranks, as well as by other 
men, in all ages, I answer, that these have been committed, not 
in virtue of their rule of faith and conduct, but in direct opposi- 
tion to it ; as will be more fully seen when we come to treat of 
that rule : whereas the extravagancies of the Quakers were 
the immediate dictates of the imaginary spirit, which they fol- 
lowed as their guide. Lastly, when the doctors of the Catholic 
Church teach us, after the inspired writers, not to extinguish, but 
to walk in the Spirit of God, they tell us, at the same time, that 
this Holy Spirit invariably and necessarily leads us to hear the 
church, and to practise that humility, obedience, and those other 
virtues which she constantly inculcates : so that if it were pos- 
sible for " an angel from heaven to preach another gospel than 
what we have received," he ought to be rejected as a spirit of 
darkness. Even Luther, when the Anabaptists first broached 
many of the leading tenets of the Quakers, required them to 
demonstrate their pretended commission from God, by incon- 
testable miracles, § or submit to be guided by his appointed 
ministers. 

I have now to notice the letter of Mr. Topham.|| Some of 

* Speaking of James Naylor, he says, " I spake with him, for I saw he 
was out and wrong — he slighted what I said, and was dark and much out." 
Journ. p. 220. 

t Journ. p. 310. This and another Friend, J. Love, went on a mission 
to Rome, to convert the pope to Quakerism; but his holiness not understand- 
ing English, when they addressed him with some coarse English epithets in 
Sr. Peter's church, they had no better success than a female Friend, Mary 
Fisher, had, who went into Greece to convert the great Turk. See Sewel's 
Hist. 

t " Now he (Fox) found also that the Lord forbade him to put off his hat 
io any men high or low ; and he required to thou and thee every man and 
woman without distinction, and not to bid people good morrow, or good 
evening : neither might he bow, or scrape with his leg." Sewel's Hist, p 
18. See there a dissertation on hat.worship. 

§ Sleidan. 

' || It was originally intended to insert these and the other letters of the 
same description: but as this would have rendered the work too bulky, end, 



40 



LETTER VII. 



his objections have already been answered, in my remarks on 
Mr. Rankin's letter. What I find particular in the former, is 
the following passage : " Is it possible to go against conviction 
and facts ? namely, the experience that very many serious 
Christians feel, in this day of God's power, that they are made 
partakers of Christ and of the Holy Ghost, and who hear him 
saying to the melting heart, with his still, small, yet penetrating 
and renovating voice, Thy sins are forgiven thee : Be thou dean : 
Thy faith hath made thee whole / If an exterior proof were 
wanting to show the certainty of this interior conviction, I might 
refer to the conversion and holy life of those who have expe- 
rienced it." — To this I answer, that the facts and the conviction 
which your friend talks of, amount to nothing more than a cer- 
tain strength of imagination and warmth of sentiment, which may 
be natural, or may be produced by that lying spirit, whom God 
sometimes permits to go forth, and to persuade the presumptuous 
to their destruction. 1 Kings, xxii. 22. I presume Mr. Topham 
will allow, that no experience which he has felt or witnessed, 
exceeded that of Bockhold, or Hacket, or Naylor, mentioned 
above ; who, nevertheless, were confessedly betrayed by it into 
the most horrible blasphemies and atrocious crimes. The virtue 
most necessary for enthusiasts, because the most remote from 
them, is an humble diffidence in themselves. When Oliver 
Cromwell was on his death-bed, Dr. Godwin, being present 
among other ministers, prophesied that the protector would re- 
cover. Death, however, almost immediately ensuing, the Pu- 
ritan, instead of acknowledging his error, cast the blame upon 
Almighty God, exclaiming, " Lord, thou hast deceived us ; and 
we have been deceived !"* With respect to the alleged purity 
of Antinomian saints, I would refer to the history of the lives 
and deaths of many of our English regicides, and to the gross 
immoralities of numberless justified Methodists, described by 
Fletcher in his Checks to Antinomianism.f 

I am, &c. 

John Milner. 

as the whole of the objections may be gathered from the answers to them, 
that intention has been abandoned. 

* See Birch's Life of Archbishop Tillotson, p. 17. 

t This candid and able writer says, " The Puritans and first Quakers soon 
got over the edge of internal activity into the smooth and easy path of Lao- 
dicean formality. Most of us, called Methodists, have already followed 
them. We fall asleep under the bewitching power ; we dream strange 
dreams ; our salvation is finished ; we have got above legality ; we have at- 
tained Christian liberty ; we have nothing to do ; our covenant is sure." 
Vol. ii. p. 233. He refers to several instances of the mosf'flagitious conduct 
of which human nature is capable, in persons who had attained to what they 
call finished salvation. 



SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 



41 



LETTER VIII.— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. 

SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 

Dear sir — 

I take it for granted, that my answers to Messrs. Rankin 
and Topham have been communicated to you, and I hope that, 
in conjunction with my preceding letters, they have convinced 
those gentlemen, of what you, dear sir, have ever been con- 
vinced of, namely, the inconsistency and fanaticism of every 
pretension on the part of individuals, at the present day, to a 
new and particular inspiration, as a rule of faith. The ques- 
tion which remains for our inquiry is, whether the rule or 
method prescribed by the Church of England, and other more 
rational classes of Protestants, or that prescribed by the Catho- 
lic Church, is the one designed by our Saviour Christ for find- 
ing out his true religion ? You say that the whole of this is 
comprised in the written word of God, or the Bible, and that 
every individual is a judge for himself of the sense of the Bible. 
Hence in every religious controversy, more especially since 
the last change of the inconstant Chillingworth,* Catholics 
have been stunned with the cries of jarring Protestant sects and 
individuals, proclaiming that the Bible, the Bible alone is their 
religion : and hence, more particularly at the present day, Bi- 
bles are distributed by hundreds of thousands, throughout the 
empire and the four quarters of the globe, as the adequate 
means of uniting and reforming Christians, and of converting 
infidels. On the other hand, we Catholics hold that that the 
word of God, in general, both written and unwritten, in other 
words, the Bible and tradition, taken together, constitute the rule 
of faith, or method appointed by Christ for finding out the true 
religion ; and, that, besides the rule itself he has provided in his 
holy church, a living, speaking judge, to watch over it and explain 
it in all matters of controversy. That the latter, and not the 
former, is the true rule, I trust I shall be able to prove, as clearly 
as I have proved that private inspiration does not constitute it : 
and this I shall prove by means of the two maxims I have on 
that occasion made use of ; namely, the rule of faith appointed 
by Christ must 6e CERTAIN and UNERRING ; that is to say, 
it must be one which is not liable to lead any rational and sincere 
inquirer into inconsistency or error ; Secondly, this rule must be 
UNIVERSAL ; that is to say, it must be proportioned to the 
abilities and circumstances of the great bul 1 : of mankind. 

* Chillingworth was first a Protestant, of the establishment : he next be- 
came a Catholic, and studied in one of our seminaries. He then returned, 
in part, to his former creed ; and last of all he gave in to Socinianism, which 
his writings greatly promoted. 

4* 



42 



LETTER VIII. 



I. If Christ had intended that all mankind should learn his 

religion from a book, namely, the New Testament, he himself 
would have written that book, and would have enjoined the ob- 
ligation of learning to read it, as the first and fundamental pre- 
cept of his religion ; whereas, he never wrote any thing at all, 
unless perhaps the sins of the Pharisees with his finger upon 
the dust, John, viii. 6.* It does not even appear that he gave 
his apostles any command to write the Gospel ; though he re- 
peatedly and emphatically commanded them to preach it, (Matt, 
x.) and this to all the nations of the earth, Matt, xxviii. 19. 
In this ministry they all of them spent their lives, preaching the 
religion of Christ in every country, from Judea to Spain in one 
direction, and to India in another; everywhere establishing 
churches, and " commending their doctrine to faithful men who 
should be fit to teach others also." 2 Tim. ii. 2. Only a part 
of them wrote any thing, and what these did write, was, for the 
most part, addressed to particular persons or congregations, and 
on particular occasions. The ancient fathers tell us that St. 
Matthew wrote his gospel at the particular request of the Chris- 
tians of Palestine,! and that St. Mark composed his at the de- 
sire of those at Rome.f St. Luke addressed his gospel to an 
individual, Theophilus, having written it, says the holy evange- 
list, because it seemed good to him to do so. Luke i. 3. St. John 
wrote the lajt of the gospels in compliance with the petition of 
the clergy and people of Lesser Asia,§ to prove, in particular, 
the divinity of Jesus Christ, which Cerinthus, Ebion, and other 
heretics began then to deny. No doubt the evangelists were 
moved by the Holy Ghost, to listen to the requests of the faith- 
ful, in writing their respective gospels ; nevertheless there is 
nothing in these occasions, nor in the gospels themselves, which 
indicates that any one of them, or all of them together, con- 
tains an entire, detailed, and clear exposition of the whole reli- 
gion of Jesus Christ. The canonical epistles in the New Tes- 
tament show the particular occasions on which they were writ- 
ten, and prove, as the Bishop of Lincoln observes, that " They 
are not to be considered as regular treatises on the Christian 
religion. "|| 

II. In supposing our Saviour to have appointed his bare 
written word for the rule of our faith, without any authorized 
judge to decide on the unavoidable controversies growing out 

* It is agreed upon among the learned, that the supposed letter of Christ 
to Abgarus, king of Edessa, quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 1. i. is spurious. 

t Euseb. 1. 3. Hist. Eccl. Chrysos. in Matt. Horn. I. Iren. 1. 3. c. L 
Hieron. de Vir. Illust. 

X Euseb. 1. 2. c. 15. Hist. Eccl. Epiph. Hieron. de Vir. Illust. 

§ Euseb. 1. 6. Hist. Eccl. Hieron, 11 Elem. of Christ. Rel. vol i. p. 277 



SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 



of it, you would suppose that he has acted differently from what 
common sense has dictated to all other legislators: for where 
do we read of a legislator, who, after dictating a code of laws, 
neglected to appoint judges and magistrates to decide on their 
meaning, and to enforce obedience to such decisions ? You, 
dear sir, have the means of knowing what would be the conse- 
quence of leaving any act of Parliament, concerning taxes, or 
enclosures, or any other temporal concerns, to the interpretation 
of the individuals whom it regards. Alluding to the Protestant 
rule, the illustrious Fenelon has said, " It is bettter to live 
without any law, than to have laws which all men are left to 
interpret according to their several opinions and interests."* 
The Bishop of Londonf appears sensible of this truth, as far as 
regards temporal affairs, where he writes, " In matters of pro- 
perty, indeed, some decision, right or wrong, must be made ; 
society could not subsist without it just as if peace and 
unity were less necessary in the one sheepfold of the one shep- 
herd, the Church of Christ, than they are in civil society ! 

III. The fact is, this method of determining religious ques- 
tions by Scripture only, according to each individual's inter- 
pretation, has always produced, whenever and wherever it has 
been adopted, endless and incurable dissensions, and of course 
errors; because truth is one, while errors are numberless. 
The ancient fathers of the church reproached the sects of here- 
tics and schismatics with their endless internal divisions. 
" See," says St. Augustin, " into how many morsels those are 
divided, who have divided themselves from the unity of the 
church !"§ Another father writes, "It is natural for error to 
be ever changing. || The disciples have the same right in this 
matter that their masters had." 

To speak now of the Protestant reformers. No sooner had 
their progenitor, Martin Luther, set up the tribunal of private 
judgment on the sense of Scripture in opposition to the author- 
ity of the church, ancient and modern, f than his disciples, 
proceeding on this principle, undertook to prove from plain 
texts of the Bible, that his own doctrine was erroneous, and 
that the Reformation itself wanted reforming. Carlostad,** 

* Life of Archbishop Fenelon, by Ramsay. 

t Dr. Porteus 

$ Brief Confut. p. 18. 

§ St. Aug. 

|| Terful. de Prescript. 

1T This happened in June, 1520, on his doctrine being censured by the 
pope. Till that time he had submitted to the judgment of the holy see. 

** He was Luther's first disciple of distinction, being Archdeacon of Wit« 
temberg. He declared against Luther in 1521. 



44 



LETTER VIII. 



Zuinglius,* GEcolompadiusf , Muncer4 and a hundred more of 

his followers, wrote and preached against him and against each 
other, with the utmost virulence, whilst each of them still pro- 
fessed to ground his doctrine and conduct on the written word 
of God alone. In vain did Luther claim a superiority over 
them ; in vain did he denounce hell-fire against them ;§ in vain 
did he threaten to return back to the Catholic religion ;|| he 
had put the Bible into each man's hand to explain it for himself, 
and this his followers continued to do in open defiance of him ;1T 
till their mutual contradictions and discords became so numer- 
ous and scandalous, as to overwhelm the thinking part of them 
with grief and confusion.** 

* Zuinglius began the Reformation in Switzerland some time after Luther 
began it in Germany, but taught such doctrine that the latter termed him a 
pagan, and said, he despaired of his salvation. 

t CEcolompadius was a Brigittine friar of the monastery of St. Lawrence, 
near Augsburgh; but soon quitted the cloister, married, and adopted the 
sentiments of Zuinglius respecting the real presence, in preference to those 
of Luther. His death was sudden, and by Luther it is asserted that he was 
strangled by the devil. 

X Muncer was the disciple of Luther, and founder of the Anabaptists, 
who, in quality of The Just, maintained that the property of The Wicked be- 
longed to them, quoting the second beatitude, "Blessed are the meek, for 
they shall possess the land." Muncer wrote to the several princes of Ger- 
many, requiring them to give up their possessions to him. He soon after 
marched at the head of 40,000 of his followers to enforce this requisition. 

§ He said to them, " I can defend you against the pope, — but when the 
devil shall urge against you (the authors of these changes) at your death, 
this passage of Scripture, ihey ran and I did not send them, how shall you 
withstand him? He will plunge you headlong into hell." — Oper. torn. vii. 
fol. 274. 

II " If you continue in these measures of your common deliberations, 1 
will recant whatever I have written or said, and leave you. Mind what I 
say." Oper. torn. vii. fol. 276. edit. Wittemb. 

1T See the curious challenge of Luther to Carlostad to write a book 
against the real presence, when one wishes the other to break his neck, and 
the latter retorts, may I see thee broken on the wheel. — Variat. b. ii. n. 12. 

** Capito, minister of Strasbuigh, writing to Farel, pastor of Geneva, thus 
complains to him : " God has given me to understand the mischief we have 
done by our precipitancy in breaking with the pope, &c. The people say to 
us, I know enough of the Gospel. 1 can read it for myself. I have no need 
of you." Inter Epist. Calvini. — In the same tone Dudith writes to his friend 
Beza : " Our people are carried away with every wind of doctrine. If you 
know what their religion is to-day, you cannot tell what it will be to-mor- 
row. In what single point are those churches which have declared war 
against the pope agreed amongst themselves ? There is not one point 
which is not held by some of them as an article of faith, and by others as an 
impiety." In the same sentiment, Calvin, writing to Melancthon, says, "It 
is of great importance that the divisions, which subsist among us, should not 
be known to future ages : for nothing can be more ridiculous than that we, 
who have broken off from the whole world, should have agreed so ill among 
ourselves from the very beginning of the Reformation." 



SECOND FALLACIOUS RTILE, 



45 



To point out some few of the particular variations alluded 
to ; for to enumerate them all would require a work vastly- 
more voluminous than that of Bossuet on this subject : it is 
weir known that Luther's fundamental principle was that of im- 
puted justice, to the exclusion of all acts of virtue and good 
Works performed by ourselves. His favorite disciple and bottle 
companion, Amsdorf, carried this principle so far as to main- 
tain, that good zuorks are a hindrance to salvation.* In vindica- 
tion of his fundamental tenet, Luther vaunts as follows : " This 
article shall remaiu in spite of all the world : it is I, Martin 
Luther, evangelist, who say it ; let no one therefore attempt to 
infringe it, neither the Emperor of the Romans, nor of the 
Turks, nor of the Tartars ; neither the pope, nor the monks, 
nor the nuns, nor the kings, nor the princes, nor all the devils 
in hell. If they attempt it, may the infernal flames be their 
recompense. What I say here is to be taken for an inspiration 
of the Holy Ghost. "f Notwithstanding, however, these terri- 
ble threats and imprecations of their master, Melancthon, with 
the rest of the Lutherans, abandoned this article, immediately 
after his death, and went over to the opposite extreme of Scmi- 
pelagianism ; not only admitting the necessity of good works, 
but also teaching that these are prior to God's grace. Still on 
this single subject Osiander, a Lutheran, says, " there are 
twenty several opinions all drawn from the Scripture, and held by 
different members of the Augsburgh or Lutheran confession."^: 
Nor has the unbounded license of explaining Scripture, each 
one in his own way, which Protestants claim, been confined to 
mere errors and dissensions : it has also caused mutual perse- 
cution and bloodshed :§ it has produced tumults, rebellions, and 
anarchy beyond recounting. Dr. Hey asserts, that " The mis- 
interpretation of Scripture brought on the miseries of the Civil 
War;"|| and Lord Clarendon/fr Madox,** and other writers 
show, that there was not a crime committed by the Puritan 
rebels, in the course of it, which they did not profess to justify 
by texts and instances drawn from the sacred volumes. Le- 
land, Bergier, Barruel, Robison, and Kett, abundantly prove 
that the poisonous plant of infidelity, which has produced such 
dreadful effects of late years on the Continent, was transplanted 
thither from this Protestant island,' and that it was produced, 

* Mosheim's Hist, by Maclaine, vol. iv. p. 328, ed. 1790. 

t Visit. Saxon. $ Archdeacon Blackburn's Confessional, p. 16. 

§ See Letters to a Prebendary, chapter " Persecution." Numberless other 
proofs of Protestants persecuting, not only Catholics, but also their fellow 
Protestants to death, on account of their religious opinions, can be adduced. 

il Dr. Hey's Theological Lectures, vol. i. p. 77. IT Hist, of Civ. War. 

** Examin. of Neal's Hist, of Puritans. 



46 



LETTER Vttt. 



nourished, and increased to its enormous growth, by that prin 
ciple of private judgment in matters of religion, which is the 
very foundation of the Reformation. Let us hear the two last- 
mentioned authors, both of them Protestant clergymen, on this 
important subject. " The spirit of free inquiry," says Kett, 
quoting Robison, " was the great boast of the Protestants, and 
their only support against the Catholics ; securing them, both 
in their civil and religious rights. It was therefore encouraged 
by their governments, and sometimes indulged to excess. In 
the progress of this contest, their own confessions did not escape 
censure ; and it was asserted, that the Reformation, which 
these confessions express, was not complete. Further reforma- 
tion was proposed. The Scriptures, the foundation of their 
faith, were examined by clergymen of very different capacities, 
dispositions, and views, till, by explaining, correcting, allego- 
rizing, and otherwise twisting the Bible, men's minds had hardly 
any thing to rest on, as a doctrine of revealed religion. This 
encouraged others to go further, and to say that revelation was 
a solecism, as plainly appears by the irreconcilable differences 
among the enlighteners of the public, so they were called ; and 
that man had nothing to trust to, but the dictates of natural 
reason. Another set of writers, proceeding from this as from 
a point settled, proscribed all religion whatever, and openly 
taught the doctrines of materialism and atheism. Most of these 
innovations were the work of Protestant divines, from the causes 
that I have mentioned. But the progress of infidelity was much 
accelerated by the establishment of a philanihr opine, or academy 
of general education, in the principality of Anhalt-Dessau. 
The professed object of this institution was, to unite the three 
Christian communions of Germany, and to make it possible for 
the members of them all not onty to live amicably, and to wor- 
ship God in the same church, but even to communicate toge- 
ther. This attempt gave rise to much speculation and refine- 
ment ; and the proposal for the amendment of the formulas, 
and the instructions from the pulpit were prosecuted with so 
much keenness, that the ground-work of Christianity was refi- 
ned and refined till it vanished , altogether, leaving deism, or 
natural, or, as it was called, philosophical religion in its place. 
The Lutherans and Calvinisis, prepared by the causes before- 
mentioned, to become dupes to this masterpiece of art, were en- 
ticed by the specious liberality of the scheme, and the particu- 
lar attention which it promised to the morals of youth: but u not 
one Roman Catholic could Basedow allure to his seminary of 
practical ethics."* 

* Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy against all Religions, &c. Kctt'a 
History, the Interpreter of Prophecy, vol. ii. p. 158. 



SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 



47 



IV. You have seen, dear sir, to what endless errors and im- 
pieties the principle of private interpretation of Scripture, no 
less than that of private inspiration of faith, has conducted men, 
and of course is ever liable to conduct them. This circum- 
stance, therefore, proves, according to the self-evident maxim 
stated above, that it cannot be the rule which is to bring us to 
religious truths. Nor is it to be imagined that, previously to 
the formation of the different national churches and other reli- 
gious associations, which took place in the several parts of Eu- 
rope, at what is called " The Reformation," the Scriptures 
were diligently consulted by the founders of the new sects ; or 
that the ancient system of religion was exploded, or the new 
systems adopted, in conformity with the apparent sense of the 
sacred text, as Protestant controvertists would have you be- 
lieve. No, sir, princes and statesmen had a great deal more 
to do with these changes than theologians : and most of the par- 
ties concerned in them were evidently pushed on by motives 
very different from those of religion. As to Martin Luther, he 
testifies, and calls God to witness the truth of his testimony, 
that it was not willingly, (that is, not from a previous discovery 
of the falsehood of his religion,) but from accident, (namely, a 
quarrel with the Dominican friars, and afterwards with the 
pope,) that he fell into his broils about religion.* With respect 
to the Reformation in our own country, we all know that Henry 
VIII., who took the first step towards it, was, at the beginning 
of his reign, so zealous against it, that he wrote a book, which 
he dedicated to Pope Leo X., in opposition to it, and in return 
obtained from this pontiff, for himself and successors, the title 
of Defender of the Faith. Becoming afterwards enamored 
of Ann Boleyn, one of the maids of honor to the queen, and 

t " Casu non voluntate in has turmas incidi : Deum testor." — The Pro. 
testant historian, Mosheim, with whom Hume agrees, admits " that several 
of the principal agents in this revolution were actuated more by the im- 
pulse of passion, and views of interest, than by a zeal for true religion." 
Maclaine, vol. iv. p. 135. He had before acknowledged that King Gusta- 
vus introduced Lutheranism into Sweden, in opposition to the clergy and 
bishops, " not only as agreeable to the genius and spirit of the Gospel, but 
also as favorable to the temporal state and political constitution of the Swe- 
dish dominions," pp. 79, 80. He adds, that Christiern, who introduced the 
Reformation into Denmark, was animated by no other motives than those of 
ambition and avarice, p. 82. Grotius, another Protestant, testifies that it 
was " sedition and violence which gave h\xm to the Reformation in his own 
country" — Holland. Append, de Antichristo. The same was the case in 
France, Geneva, and Scotland. It is to be observed, that in all these coun- 
tries, the reformers, as soon as they got the upper hand, became violent per- 
secutors of the Catholics. Bergier defies Protestants to name so much as a 
town or village in which, when they became masters of it, they tolerated a 
iingle Catholic. 



48 



LETTER VIIT. 



the reigning pope having refused to sanction an adulterous mar. 
riage with her, he caused a statute to be passed, abrogating the 
pope's supremacy, and declaring himself supreme head of the 
Church of England * Thus he plunged the nation into schism, 
and opened a way for every kind of heresy and impiety. In 
short, nothing is more evident than that the king's inordinate 
passion, and not the word of God, was the rule followed in this 
first important change of our national religion. The unprinci- 
pled Duke of Somerset, who next succeeded to supreme power 
in the church and state, under the shadow of his youthful ne- 
phew, Edward VI., pushed on the Reformation, so called, much 
further than it had yet been carried, with a view to the gratifi- 
cation of his own ambitious and avaricious purposes. He sup- 
pressed the remaining colleges and hospitals, which the profli- 
gacy of Henry had spared, converting their revenues to his own 
use and to that of his associates. He forced Cranmer and the 
other bishops to take out fresh commissions for governing their 
dioceses during his nephew's, that is to say, his own good plea- 
sure.^ He made a great number of important changes in the 
public worship, by his own authority or that of his visiters ;f 
and when- he employed certain bishops and divines in forming 
fresh articles and a new liturgy, he punished them with im- 
prisonment if they were not on all points obsequious to his or- 
ders^ He even took upon himself to alter their work, when 
sanctioned by Parliament, in compliment to the church's great- 
est enemy, Calvin. || Afterwards, when Elizabeth came to the 

* Archbishop Parker records, that the bishops, assembled in synod in 
1531, offered to sign this new title, with the following salvo : " In quantum 
per Christi leges licet but that the king would admit of no such modifica- 
tion. Antiq. Brit. p. 325. In the end, they surrendered the whole of their 
spiritual jurisdiction to him, (all except the religious Bishop of Rochester, 
Fisher, who was put to death for his refusal,) and were content to publish 
Articles of Eeligion devised by the King's Highness. Heylin's Hist, of 
Reform. Collier, &c. 

t " Licentiam concedimus ad nostrum beneplacitum dumtaxat duraturam." 
Burnet Hist. Ref. P. II. B. i. N. 2. 

t See the Injunctions of the Council to Preachers, published before the 
Parliament met, concerning the mass in the Latin language, prayers for the 
dead, &c. See also the order sent to the primate against psalms, ashes, &c, 
in Heylin, Burnet, and Collier. The boy Edward VI., just thirteen years 
old, was taught by his uncle to proclaim as follows : " We would not have 
our subjects so much to mistake our judgment, &c, as though we could 
not discern what is to be done, <5&. God be praised, we know what, by his 
word, is fit to be redressed," &c. Collier, vol. ii. p. 246. . 

§ The Bishops Heath and Gardiner were both imprisoned for non-com- 
pliance. 

|| Heylin complains bitterly of Calvin's pragmatical spirit, in quarrelling 
with the English liturgy, and soliciting the protector to alter it. Preface to 
Hist, of Reform. His letters to Somerset on the subject may be seen in 
Fox's Aat* mud Montmu 



SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 



49 



throne, a new reformation, different in its articles and liturgy 
from that of Edward VI., was set on foot, and moulded, not ac- 
cording to Scripture, but to her orders. She deposed all the 
bishops except one, "the calamity of his see," as he was called;* 
and required the new ones, whom she appointed, to renounce 
certain exercises, which they declared to be agreeable to the 
Word of GW,f but which she found not to agree with her sys- 
tem of politics. She even in full parliament threatened to de- 
pose them all, if they did not act conformably to her views. £ 

V. The more strictly the subject is examined, the more 
clearly it will appear, that it was not in consequence of 
any investigation of the Scriptures, either public or private, 
that the ancient Catholic religion was abolished, and one 
or other of the new Protestant religions set up in the different 
northern kingdoms and states of Europe, but in consequence 
of the politics of princes and statesmen, the avarice of the no- 
bility and gentry, and the irreligion and licentiousness of the 
people. I will even advance a step further, and affirm that 
there is no appearance of any individual Protestant, to whatever 
sect he belongs, having formed his creed by the rule of Scrip- 
lure alone. Fordo you, sir, really believe that those persons of 
your communion, whom you see the most diligent and devout 
in turning over their Bibles, have really found out in them 
the thirty-nine articles, or any other creed which they happen 
to profess ? To judge more certainly of this matter, I wish 
those gentlemen who are the most zealous and active in dis- 
tributing Bibles among the Indians and Africans in their differ- 
ent countries, would procure, from some half dozen of the 
most intelligent and serious of their proselytes, who have heard 
nothing of the Christian faith by any other means than their 
Bibles, a summary of what they respectively understand to be 
the doctrine and the morality taught in that sacred volume. 
What inconsistent and nonsensical symbols should we not wit- 
ness ! The truth is, Protestants are tutored from their infancy, 
by the help of catechisms and creeds, in the systems of their re- 
spective sects ; they are guided by their parents and masters, 
and are influenced by the opinions and example of those with 
whom they live and converse. Some particular texts of Scrip- 
ture are strongly impressed upon their minds, and others of an 

* Anthony Kitchen, so called by Godwin, de Praesul, and Camden. 

t This took place with respect to what was termed prophesying, then 
practised by many Protestants, and defended by Archbishop Grindal and the 
other bishops, as agreeable to God's word : nevertheless, the queen obliged 
them to suppress it. Col. Eccl. Hist. P. II. p. 554, &c. 

X See her curious speech in Parliament, March 25, 1585, in Stow's An 
nals. 

5 



-50 



LETTER VIII. 



apparently different meaning are kept out of their view, or 
glossed over; and above all, it is constantly inculcated to them, 
that their religion is built upon Scripture alone. Hence, when 
they actually read the Scriptures, they fancy they see there, 
what they have been otherwise taught to believe ; the Lutheran, 
for example, that Christ is really present in the sacrament ; the 
Calvinist, that he is as far distant from it as heaven is from 
earth ; the Churchman, that baptism is necessary for infants ; 
the Baptist, that it is an impiety to confer it upon them; 
and so of all the other forty sects of Protestants enumerated 
by Evans in his Sketch of the Different Denominations of 
Christians, and of twice forty other sects whom he omits to 
mention. 

When I remarked that our blessed Master, Jesus Christ, 
wrote no part of the New Testament himself, and gave no or- 
ders to his apostles to write it, I ought to have added, that if he 
had intended it to be, together with the Old Testament, the 
sole rule of religion, he would have provided means for their 
being able to follow it ; knowing, as he certainly did, that 99 
in every 100, or rather 999 in every 1000, in different ages and 
countries, would not be able to read at all, and much less to 
comprehend a page of the sacred writings. Yet no such 
means were provided by him ; nor has he so much as enjoined 
it on his followers in general to study letters. 

Another observation on this subject, and a very obvious one 
is ; that among those Christians who profess that the Bible 
alone is the rule of their religion, there ought to be no articles, 
no catechisms, no sermons, nor other instructions. True it is, 
that the abolition of these, however incompatible they are with 
the rule itself, would quickly undermine the Established 
Church, as its clergy now begin to understand ; and, if univer- 
sally carried into effect, would, in the end, efface the whole 
doctrine and morality of the Gospel ;* but this consequence 
(which is inevitable) only shows more clearly the falsehood of 
this exclusive rule. In fact, the most enlightened Protestants 
find themselves here in a dilemma, and are obliged to say and 
unsay, to the amusement of some persons, and the pity of 
others."]* They cannot abandon the rule of the Bible alone, as 

* The Protestant writers, Kett and Robison, have shown, in the passage 
above quoted, that the principle of private judgment tends to undermine 
Christianity at large ; and Archdeacon Hook, in his late charge, shows by 
an exact, statement of capital convictions in different years, that the increase 
of immorality has kept.pace with that <jf the Bib 1 e societies. 

t One of the latest instances of the distress in question, is exhibited by 
the Rt. Rev. Dr. Marsh. In his publication, The Inquiry, p. 4, he says very 
truly, " the poor (who constitute the bulk of mankind) cannot, without as- 



SECOND FALLACIOUS RTJLEU 



51 



explained by each one for himself, without proclaiming their 
guilt in refusing to hear the church, and they cannot adhere to 
it, without opening the floodgates to all the impiety and immo- 
rality of the present age upon their own communion. I shall 
have occasion hereafter to notice the claims of the Established 
Church to authority, in determining the sense of Scripture, as 
well as in other religious controversies : in the mean time I 
cannot but observe, that her most able defenders are frequently 
obliged to abandon their own, and adopt the Catholic rule of 
faith. The judicious Hooker, in his defence of the Church of 
England, writes thus : " Of this we are right sure, that nature, 
-Scripture, and experience itself, have taught the world to seek 
for the ending of contentions by submitting to some judicial and 
definite sentence, whereunto neither parties that contendeth, 
may, under any pretence or color, refuse to stand. This must 
needs be effectual and strong. As for other means, without 
this, they seldom prevail."* Another most clear-headed writer, 
sand renowned defender of the establishment, whom I had the 
happiness of being acquainted with, Dr. Balguy, f thus ex- 
presses himself in a Charge to the Clergy of his archdeaconry: 
" The opinions of the people are and must be founded more on 
authority than reason. Their parents, their teachers, their 
governors, in a great measure, determine for them, what they 
are to believe a,nd what to practise. The same doctrines, uni- 
formly taught, the same rites constantly performed, make such 
an impression on their minds, that they hesitate as little in ad- 
mitting the articles of their faith, as in receiving the most 
established maxims of common life. "J With such testimo- 
nies before your eyes, can you, dear sir, imagine that the bulk 
of Protestants have formed, or were designed to form their reli- 
gion by the standard of Scripture ? He goes on to say, speak- 
ing of controverted points : " Would you have them (the people) 
think for themselves ? Would you have them hear and decide 

sistance, understand the Scriptures." Being congratulated on this important, 
yet unavoidable concession, by the Rev. Mr. Gandolphy, he tacks about in a 
public letter to that gentleman, and says, that what he wrote in his Inquiry 
concerning the necessity of a further rule than mere Scripture, only regards 
the establishment of religion, not the truth of it ; just as if that rule were 
sufficient to conduct the people to the truth of religion, while he expressly 
says they cannot understand it! 

* Hooker's Eccles. Polity, Pref. art. 6. 

t Discourses on various subjects, by T. Balguy, D.D., Archdeacon and 
Prebendary of Winchester. Some of these discourses were preached at the 
consecration of bishop?, and published by order of the archbishop ; some in 
charges to the clergy. The whole of them is dedicated to the king, whom 
the writer thanks for naming him to a high dignity, (the bishopric of Glou- 
cester,) and for permitting him to decline accepting of it. 

X Discourses on various subjects, by T. Balguy, D.D. p. 257. • 



LETTER IX, 



the controversies of the learned ? Would you have them ente? 
into the depths of criticism, of logic, of scholastic divinity ? 
You might as well expect them to compute an eclipse, or decide 
between the Cartesian and Newtonian philosophy. Nay, I will 
go further : for I take upon myself to say, there are more men 
capable, in some competent degree, of understanding Newton's 
philosophy, than of forming any judgment at all concerning the 
abstruser questions in metaphysics and theology." Yet the 
persons, of whom the doctor particularly speaks, were all fur- 
nished with Bibles ; and the abstruse questions, which he refers 
to, are : " Whether Christ did, or did not, come down from hea- 
ven ?" whether " he died, or did not die, for the sins of the 
world ?" whether " he sent his Holy Spirit to assist and com- 
fort us, or whether he did not send him ?"* The learned doctor 
elsewhere expresses himself still more explicitly on the subject 
of Scripture without church authority. He is combating the 
Dissenters, but his weapons are evidently as fatal to his own 
church as to theirs. " It has long been held among them that 
Scripture only, is the rule and test of all religious ordinances ; 
and that human authority is to be altogether excluded. Their 
ancestors, I believe, would have been not a little embarrassed 
with their own maxim, if they had not possessed a singular 
talent of seeing every thing in Scripture which they had a mind to 
see. Almost every sect could find there its own peculiar form 
of church-government ; and while they forced only their own 
imaginations, they believed themselves to be executing the decrees 
of heaven."^ 

I conclude this long letter with a passage to the present pur- 
pose from our admired theological poet : — - 

"As long as words a different sense will bear, 
And each may be his own interpreter, 
Our airy faith will no foundation find : 
The word's a weathercock for ev'ry wind. "I 

I am, dear sir, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER IX.—TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. 
SECOND FALSE RULE. 

Dear sir- 
After all that I have written concerning the rule of faith, 
adopted by yourself, and other more rational Protestants, I have 
only yet treated of the extrinsic arguments against it. I now 

* Discourses on various subjects, by T. Balguy, D.D. p. 257. 

f Discourse VII. p. 126. t Dryden's Hind and Panther, Part. I. 



SECOND FALSE RULE. 



58 



therefore proceed to investigate its intrinsic nature, in order to 
show more fully the inadequacy, or rather the falsehood of it. 

When an English Protestant gets possession of an English 
Bible, printed by Thomas Basket, or other " printer to the king's 
most excellent majesty," he takes it in hand with the same con- 
fidence, as if he had immediately received it from the Almighty 
himself, as Moses received the tables of the law on Mount Si- 
nai, amidst thunder and lightning. But how vain is this confi- 
dence, whilst he a*dheres to the foregoing rule of faith ! How 
many questionable points does he assume as proved, which can- 
not be proved, without relinquishing his own principles and 
adopting ours ! 

I. Supposing then you, dear sir, to be the Protestant I have 
been speaking of ; I begin with asking you, by what means 
have you learnt what is the canon of Scripture, that is to say, 
which are the books that have been written by Divine inspira- 
tion ; or indeed how have you ascertained that any books at all 
have been so written ? You cannot discover either of these 
things by your rule, because the Scripture, as your great au- 
thority, Hooker shows* and Chillingworth allows, cannot bear 
testimony to itself. You will say that the Old Testament was 
written by Moses and the prophets, and the New Testament by 
the apostles of Christ and the evangelists. But admitting all 
this ; it does not of itself prove that they always wrote, or in^ 
deed that they ever wrote under the influence of inspiration. 
They were, by nature, fallible men ; how have you learnt that 
they were infallible writers ? In the next place, you receive 
books, as canonical parts of the Testament, which were not 
written by apostles at all, namely, the gospels of St. Mark and 
St. Luke ; whilst you reject an authentic work of great excel- 
lence,! written by one who is termed in Scripture an aposile,\ 
and declared to be full of the Holy Ghost ;§ I speak of St. Bar- 
nabas. Lastly, you have no sufficient authority for asserting 
that the sacred volumes are the genuine composition of the holy 
personages whose names they bear, except the tradition and 
living voice of the Catholic Church ; since numerous apocry- 
phal prophecies and spurious gospels and epistles, under the 
same or equally venerable names, were circulated in the 
church, during its early ages, and accredited by different 
learned writers and holy fathers ; while some of the really ca- 
nonical books were rejected or doubted of by them. In short, 
it was not until the end of the fourth century, that the genuine 

* Eccles. Polit. B. iii. sec. 8. 

t St. Barnabas. See Grabe's Spicileg. and Cotlerus's Collect 

* Acts, xiv. 13. § Acts, xi. 24 

5* 



54 



LETTER IX. 



canon of Holy Scripture was fixed : and then it was fixed by 

the tradition and authority of the church, declared in the Third 
Council of Carthage and a decretal of P. Innocent I. Indeed 
it is so clear that the canon of Scripture is built on the tradition 
of the church, that most learned Protestants.* with Luther him- 
self, havef been forced to acknowledge it, in terms almost as 
strong as those in the well-known declaration of St. Augustin.ij: 
II. Again ; supposing the Divine authority of the sacred 
books themselves to be established, how do* you know that the 
copies of them translated and printed in your Bible are authen- 
tic 1 It is agreed upon amongst the learned, that, together with 
the temple and city of Jerusalem, the original text of Moses and 
the ancient prophets were destroyed by the Assyrians, under 
Nebuchadnezzar and, though they were replaced by authen- 
tic copies, at the end of the Babylonish captivity, through the 
pious care of the prophet Esdras or Ezra, yet that these also 
perished in the subsequent persecution of Antiochus ;|| from 
which time we have no evidence of the authenticity of the Old 
Testament, till this was supplied by Christ and his apostles, who 
transmitted it to the church. In like manner, granting, for ex- 
ample, that St. Paul wrote an inspired epistle to the Romans, 
and another to the Ephesians ; yet, as the former was intrusted 
to an individual, the deaconess Phebe, to be conveyed by her to 
its destination, IF and the latter to his disciple, Tychicus,** 
for the same purpose, it is impossible for you to entertain a ra- 
tional conviction that these epistles, as they stand in your Tes- 
tament, are exactly in the state in which they issued from the 
apostle's pen, or that they are his genuine epistles at all ; with- 
out recurring to the tradition and authority of the Catholic 
Church concerning them. To make short of this matter, I will 
not lead you into the labyrinth of biblical criticism, nor will I 
show you the endless varieties of readings with respect to words 
and whole passages, which occur in different copies of the sacred 
text, but will here content myself with referring you to your own 
Bible book, as printed by authority. Look, then, at Psalm xiv., 
as it occurs in the Book of Common Prayer, to which your cler- 
gy swear their "consent and assent;" then look at the same 

* Hooker, Eccl. Polit. C. iii. S. 8. Dr. Lardner, in Bishop Watson's Col. 
vol. ii. p. 20. 

t " We are obliged to yield many things to the Papists — that with them 
is the word of God, which we have received from them ; otherwise we 
should have known nothing at all about it." Comment, on John, c. 16. 

X " I should not believe the Gospel itself, if the authority of the Catholic 
Church did not oblige me to do so." Contra Epist. Fundam. 

§ Brett's Dissert, in Bishop Watson's Collect, vol iii. p. 5. 

H Ibid. vol.. iii. p. 5 IT Rom, xvi, See Calmet, &c. 

** Ephes. vi. 31. 



SECOND FALSE RULE. 



55 



Psalm in your Bible: you will find four whole verses in the 
former which are left out in the latter ! What will you here say, 
dear sir? You must say that your church has added to, or else 
that she has taken away from the words of this prophecy f* 

III. But your pains and perplexities concerning your rule of 
faith must not stop even at this point : for though you had de- 
monstrative evidence, that the several books in your Bible are 
canonical, and authentic in the originals, it would still remain 
for you to inquire, whether or no they are faithfully translated 
in your English copy ? In fact, you are aware that they were 
written, some of them in Hebrew, and some of them in Greek : 
out of which languages they were translated, for the last time, 
by about fifty different men, of various capacities, learning, judg- 
ment, opinions, and prejudices. f In this inquiry, the Catholic 
Church herself can afford you no security to build your faith up- 
on ; much less can any private individuals whosoever. The cele- 
brated Protestant divine, Episcopius, was so convinced of the 
fallibility of modern translations, that he wanted all sorts of per- 
sons, laborers, sailors, women, &c, to learn Hebrew and Greek. 
Indeed, it is obvious, that the sense of a text may depend upon 
the choice of a single word in the translation ; nay, it sometimes 
depends upon the mere punctuation of a sentence, as may be seen 
below.J Can you, then, consistently, reject the authority of the 
great Universal Church, and yet build upon that of some obscure 
translator in the reign of James L? No, sir, you must your- 
self have compared your English Bible with the originals, and 
have proved it to be a faithful version, before you can build your 
faith upon it, as upon The Word of God. To say one word 
now of the Bibles themselves, which have been published by 
authority, or generally used by Protestants in this country : — 
Those of Tindal, Coverdale, and Queen Elizabeth's bishops, 
were so notoriously corrupt, as to cause a general outcry against 
them among learned Protestants, as well as among Catholics, 
in which the king himself (James I.) joined ;§ and accordingly 

* The verses in question being quoted by St. Paul, Rom. in. 13, &c. 
there is no doubt but the Common Bible is defective in this passage. On 
the other hand, Bishop Marsh has published his conviction that the most 
important passage in the New Testament, 1 John, v. 7, for establishing the 
Divinity of Jesus Christ, " is spurious." Elem. of Theo, vol. ii. p. 90. 

i See a list of them in Ant. Johnson's Hist. Account. Theo. Collec. p. 95. 

X One of the strongest passages for the divinity of Christ is the following, 
as it is pointed in the Vulgate : Ex quibus est Christus, secundum carnem, 
qui est super omnia Deus benedicius in scscula. Rom. ix. 5. But see how 
Grotius and Socinus deprive the text of all its strength, by merely substitu- 
ting a point for a comma : Ex quibus est Christus, secundum carnem. Qui 
est super omnia Deus benedictus in sacula. 

§• Bishop Watson's Collect, vol. iii. p. 98, 



56 



LETTER IX. 



ordered a new version of it to be made ; being the same that is 
now in use, with some few alterations, introduced after the Res- 
toration.* Now, though these new translators have corrected 
many wilful errors of their predecessors, most of which were 
levelled at Catholic doctrines and discipline,^ yet they have left 
a sufficient number of them behind, for which I do not find that 
their advocates offer any excuse whatsoever.:}: 

IV. I will make a further supposition, namely, that you had 
the certainty even of revelation, as the Calvinists used to pre- 
tend they had, that your Bible is not only canonical but authen- 
tic and faithful, in its English garb ; yet what would all this 
avail you, towards establishing your rule of faith, unless you 
could be equally certain of your understanding the whole of it 
rightly ? For, as the learned Protestant bishop, Walton, says :§ 
" The word of God does not consist in mere letters, whether 
written or printed, but in the true sense of it ;|| which no one 
can better interpret than the true church to which Christ com- 
mitted this sacred pledge. 7 ' This is exactly what St. Jerom and 
St. Augustin had said many ages before him. " Let us be per- 
suaded," says the former, " that the gospel consists not in the 
words, but in the sense. A wrong explanation turns the word of 
God into the word of man, and what is worse, into the word of the 
devil ; for the devil himself could quote the text of Scripture. "1F 
Now that there are in Scripture " things hard to be understood, 
which the unlearned and unstable wrest unto their own destruc- 
tion," is expressly affirmed in the Scripture itself.** The same 
thing is proved by the frequent mistakes of the apostles them- 
selves, with respect to the words of their Divine Master. These 
obscurities are so numberless throughout the sacred volumes, 
that the last quoted father, who was as bright and learned a 
divine as ever took the Bible in hand, says of it : " There are 

* Bishop Watson's Collect, vol. iii. p. 98. 

t These may be found in the learned Greg. Martin's Treatise on the 
subject, and in Ward's Errata to the Protestant Bible. 

% Two of these I had occasion to notice in my Inquiry into the character 
of the Irish Catholics, namely, 1 Cor. xi. 17, where the conjunctive and is 
put for the disjunctive or, and Matt. xix. 11, where cannot is put for do not, 
to the altering of the sense in both instances. Now, though these corrup 
tions stand in direct opposition to the original, as the Rev. Mr. Grier and 
Dr. Ryan themselves quote it ; yet these writers have the confidence to deny 
they are corruptions, because they pretend to prove from other texts that the 
cup is necessary and that continency is not necessary! ! Answer to Ward's 
Errata, p. 13, page 33. 

§ In the Prolegomena to his Polyglott, cap. v. 

|| This obvious truth shows the extreme absurdities of our Bible Socie 
ties and modern schools, which regard nothing but the mere reading of the, 
Bible, leaving persons to embrace the most opposite interpretations of die 
same texts. IT In Ep. ad Galat. contra Lucif. ** 2 Pet. iii. 16 



SECOND FALSE RULE. 



57 



more things in Scripture which I am ignorant of, than those that 
i know,"* Should you prefer a modern Protestant authority to 
an ancient Catholic one, listen to the clear-headed Balguy. 
His words are these : " But what, you will reply, is all this to 
Christians 1 to those who see, by a clear and strong light, the 
dispensation of God to mankind ? We are not as those who have 
no hope. The day-spring from on high hath visited us. The 
Spirit of God shall lead us into all truth. To this delusive dream 
of human folly, founded only on mistaken interpretations of 
Scripture, I answer, in one word : Open your Bibles ; take the 
first page that occurs in either Testament, and tell me, with- 
out disguise, is there nothing in it too hard for your under- 
standing ? If you find all before you clear and easy, you may- 
thank God for giving you a privilege which he has denied to 
many thousands of sincere believers. "f 

Manifold is the cause of the obscurity of Holy Writ ; 1st, the 
sublimity of a considerable part of it, which speaks either lite- 
rally or figuratively of the Deity and his attributes ; of the 
Word incarnate ; of angels and other spiritual beings 2dly, 
the mysterious nature of prophecy in general ; — 3dly, the pe- 
culiar idioms of the Hebrew and Greek languages ; — lastly, 
the numerous and bold figures of speech, such as allegory, 
irony, hyperbole, catachresis, antiphrasis, &c, which are so 
frequent with the sacred penmen, particularly the ancient pro- 
phets.^: I should like to hear any one of those, who pretend to 
find the Scripture so easy, attempting to give a clear explana- 
tion of thf*67th, alias the 68th Psalm ; or the last chapter of 
Scclesiastes. Is it an easy matter to reconcile certain well- 
known speeches of each of the holy patriarchs, Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob, with the incommutable precept of truth ? I 
may here notice, among a thousand other such difficulties, that 
when our Saviour sent his twelve apostles to preach the Gospel 
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he told them, according 
to St. Mafhew, x. 10., to Provide neither gold nor silver — nei- 
ther shoes nor yet staves : whereas St. Mark, vi. says, he com- 
manded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save 
a staff only. You may indeed answer, with Chillingworth and 
Bishop Porteus, that whatever obscurities there may be in cer- 
tain parts of Scripture, it is clear in all that is necessary to be 
known. But on what authority do these writers ground this 
maxim ? They have none at all ; but they beg the question, as 
logicians express it, to extricate themselves from an absurdity ; 

* St. Aug. Ep. ad Januar. t Dr. Balguy's Discourses, p. 133. 

t See examples of these in Bonfrerius's Praeloquia and in the Appendixes 
to them, at the end of Menochius, 



LETTER IX. 



and in so doing they overturn their fundamental rule. They 

profess to gather their articles of faith and morals from mere 
Scripture ; nevertheless confessing that they understand only a 
part of it, they presume to make a distinction in it, and to say 
this part is necessary to be known, the other part is not neces- 
sary. But to place this matter in a clear light, it is obvious 
that if any articles are particularly necessary to be known and 
believed, they are those which point to the God whom we are 
to adore, and the moral precepts which we are to observe. 
Now, is it demonstratively evident, from mere Scripture, that 
Christ is God, and to be adored as such ? Most modern Pro- 
testants of eminence answer NO ; and, in defence of their as- 
sertion, quote the following among other texts : The Father is 
greater than I, John, xiv. 28 ; to which the orthodox divines op- 
pose those texts of the same evangelist : / and the Father are 
one, x. 30: The Word was God, &c. i. 1. Again, we find the 
following among the moral precepts of the Old Testament : — 
" Go thy way : eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with 
a merry heart : for God now accepteth thy works. Let thy 
garments be always white, and let thy head lack no ointment 
Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest," &c. Eccles. ix 
7, 8, 9. In the New Testament we meet with the following 
seemingly practical commands : " Swear not at all," Matt. v. 
34. " Call no man father upon earth — neither be you called 
masters, for one is your Master, Christ," Matt, xxiii. 9, 10. 
" If any man sue thee at law, to take away thy coat, let him 
have thy cloak also," v. .46. " Give to every man Hiat asketh 
of thee ; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask him not 
again," Luke vi. 33. " When thou makest a dinner or a sup- 
per, call not thy friends nor thy brethren," xiv. 12. These are 
a few among hundreds of other difficulties, regarding our moral 
duties, which, though confronted by other texts, seemingly of a 
contrary meaning, nevertheless show that the Scripture is not, 
of itself, demonstratively clear in points of first rate import- 
ance, and that the Divine law, like human laws, without an au- 
thorized interpreter, must ever be a source of doubt and con- 
tention. 

V. I have said enough concerning the contentions among 
Protestants ; I will now, by way of concluding this letter, say 
a word or two of their doubts. In the first place, it is certain, 
as a learned Catholic controvertist argues,* that a person who 
follows your rule cannot make an act of faith ; this being, ac- 
cording to your great authority, Bishop Pearson, an assent to 

* Sheffmacher, Lettres d'un Docteur Cat. a tin Gentilhomme Trot. vol. 
i. p. 48. 



SECOND FALSE RULE, 



59 



the revealed articles, with a certain and full 'persuasion of their 
revealed truth :* or, to use the words of your primate, Wake: 
(i When I give my assent to what God has revealed, I do it, 
not only with a certain assurance that what I believe is true, 
but with an absolute security that it cannot be false. ''-\ Now the 
Protestant, who has nothing to trust to but his own talents, in 
interpreting the books of Scripture, especially with all the dif- 
ficulties and uncertainties which he labors under, according to 
what I have shown above, never can rise to this certain assur- 
ance and absolute security, as to what is revealed in Scripture. 
The utmost he can say is : such and such appears to me at the 
present moment to be the sense of the texts before me : and if he is 
candid, he will add ; but perhaps, upon further consideration and 
upon comparing these with other texts, I may alter my opinion. 
How far short, dear sir, is such mere opinion from the certainty 
of faith ! I may here refer you to your own experience. Are 
you accustomed, in reading your Bible, to conclude, in your 
own mind, with respect to those points which appear to you 
most clear : I believe in these, with a certain assurance of their 
truth, and an absolute security that they cannot be false ; espe- 
cially when you reflect that other learned, intelligent, and sin- 
cere Christians have understood those passages in quite a differ- 
ent sense from what you do ? For my part, having sometimes 
lived and conversed familiarly with Protestants of this descrip- 
tion, and noticed their controversial discourses, I never found 
one of them absolutely fixed in his mind, for any long time to- 
gether, as to the whole of his belief. I invite you to make the 
experiment on the most intelligent and religious Protestant of 
your acquaintance. Ask him a considerable number of ques- 
tions, on the most important points of his religion : note down 
his answers, while they are fresh in your memory. Ask him 
the same questions, but in a different order, a month after- 
wards ; when I can almost venture to say, you will be sur- 
prised at the difference you will find, between his former and 
his latter creed. After all, we need not use any other means 
to discover the state of doubt and uncertainty, in which many 
of your greatest divines and most profound scriptural students 
have passed their days, than to look into their publications. I 
shall satisfy myself with citing the Pastoral Charge of one of 
them, a living bishop, to his clergy. Speaking of the Christian 
doctrines he says : " I think it safer to tell you, where they are 
contained, than what they are. They are contained in the Bible, 
and if, in reading that book, your sentiments concerning the 
doctrines of Christianity should be different from those of your 



On the Creed, p. 15. 



t Piincip. of Christ. Rel. p. 17. 



LETTER IX. 



neighbor, or from those of the church, be persuaded on your 
part, that infallibility appertains as little to you as it does to 
the church."* Can you read this, my dear sir, without shud- 
dering ? If a most learned and intelligent bishop and professor 
of divinity, as Dr. Watson certainly is, after studying all the 
Scriptures and all the commentators upon them, is forced pub- 
licly to confess to his assembled clergy, that he cannot tell them 
what the doctrines of Christianity are, how unsettled must his 
mind have been ! and of course, how far removed from the 
assurance of faith ! In the next place, how fallacious must 
that rule of the mere Bible be, which, while he recommends it 
to them, he plainly signifies, will not lead them to a uniformity 
of sentiments, one with another, nor even with their church ! 

There can be no doubt, sir, but that those who entertain 
doubts concerning the truth of their religion, in the course of 
their lives, must experience the same with redoubled anxiety 
at the approach of death. Accordingly there are, I believe, 
few of our Catholic priests in an extensive ministry, who have 
not been frequently called in to receive dying Protestants into 
the Catholic Church,! while not a single instance can be pro- 
duced, of a Catholic wishing to die in any other communion 
than his own.J O Death, thou great enlightener ! O truth- 
telling Death, how powerful art thou in confuting the blasphe- 
mies, and dissipating the prejudices of the enemies of God's 
church ! Taking it for granted, that you, dear sir, have not 
been without your doubts and fears as to the safety of the road 
in which you are walking to eternity, more particularly in the 
course of the present controversy, and being anxious beyond 
expression that you should be free from these, when you arrive 
at the brink of that vast ocean, I cannot do better than address 
you in the words of the great St. Augustin, to one in your sit- 
uation : " If you think you have been sufficiently tossed about, 

* Bishop Watson's Charge to his Clergy, in 1795. 

t A large proportion of those grandees who were the most forward in 
promoting the Reformation, so called, and among the rest Cromwell, Earl ot 
Essex, the King's Ecclesiastical Vicar, when they came to die, returned to 
the Catholic Church. This was the case also with Luther's chief protector, 
the Elector of Saxony, the persecuting Queen of Navarre, and many other 
foreign Protestant princes. Some bishops of the Established Church; for 
instance, Goodman and Cheyney of Gloucester, and Gordon of Glasgow, 
probably also King of London, and Halifax of St. Asaph's, died Catholics. 
A long list of titled or otherwise distinguished personages, who have either re 
turned to the Catholic faith, or, for the first time embraced it on their death, 
beds, in modern times, might be named here, if it were prudent to do so. 

X This is remarked by Sir Toby Mathews, son of the Archbishop of 
York, Hugh Cressy, Canon of Windsor and Dean of Leighlin, F. Walsing. 
ham, and Ant. Ulric, Duke of Brunswick, all illustrious converts ; also Beu 
rier in his Conferences, p. 400, 



THE TRUE RULE. 



31 



and wish to see an end to your anxieties, follow the rule of 
Catholic discipline, which came down to us through the apos- 
tles from Christ himself, and which shall descend from us to 
the latest posterity."* Yes, renounce the fatal and foolish pre- 
sumption of fancying that you can interpret the Scripture bet- 
ter than the Catholic Church, aided, as she is, by the tradition 
of all ages, and the Spirit of all truth. f But I mean to treat 
this latter subject at due length in my next letter. 

I am, dear sir, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER X. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c. 
THE TRUE RULE. 

Dear sir — 

I have received your letter, and also two others from gen- 
tlemen of your Society, on what I have written to you concern- 
ing the insufficiency of Scripture, interpreted by individuals, to 
constitute a secure rule of faith. From these it is plain, that 
my arguments have produced a considerable sensation in the 
society ; insomuch that I find myself obliged to remind them 
of the terms on which we mutually entered upon this corres- 
pondence ; namely, that each one should be at perfect liberty 
to express his sentiments on the important subject under con- 
sideration, without complaint or offence of the other. The 
strength of my arguments is admitted by you all : yet you all 
bring invincible objections, as you consider them, from Scrip- 
ture and other sources against them. I think it will render our 
controversy more simple and clear, if, with your permission, I 
defer answering these, till after I have said all that I have to 
say concerning the Catholic rule of faith. 

The Catholic rule of faith, as I stated before, is not merely 
the written word of God, but the whole word of God, hoth 
written and unwritten ; in other words, Scripture and tradition, 
and these propounded and explained by the Catholic Church. 
This implies that we have a twofold rule or law, and that we 
*jave an interpreter, or judge, to explain it, and to decide upon 
it in all doubtful points. 

I. I enter upon this subject with observing that all written laws 

* De Utilit. Cred. c. 8. 

t Bossuet, in his celebrated Conference with Claude, which produced the 
conversion of Mile. Duras, obliged him to confess that, by the Protestant 
rule, " every artisan and husbandman may and ought to believe that he 
can understand the Scriptures better than all the fathers and doctors of the 
church, ancient and modern, put together." 

6 



m 



LETTER X. 



necessarily suppose the existence of unwritten laws, and indeed 
depend upon them for their force and authority. Not to run 
into the depths of ethics and metaphysics on this subject, you 
know, dear sir, that, in this kingdom, we have common or un ■ 
written law, and statute or written law, both of them binding ; 
but that the former necessarily precedes the latter. The legis- 
lature, for example, makes a written statute, but we must 
learn beforehand, from the common law, what constitutes the le 
gislature, and we must also have learnt from the natural and 
the Divine laws, that the legislature is to be obeyed in all things 
which these do not render unlawful, " The municipal law of 
England," says Judge Blackstone, " may be divided into lex 
non scripta, the unwritten or common law, and the lex scripia, 
or statute law."* He afterwards calls the common law, "the 
first ground and chief corner-stone of the laws of England."f 
"If," continues he, u the question arises, how these customs or 
maxims are to be known, and by whom their validity are to be de- 
termined ? The answer is, by the judges in the several courts of 
justice. They are the depositories of the laws, the living oracles, 
who must decide in all cases of doubt, and who are bound by 
oath to decide according to the law of the land.":}: So absurd 
is the idea of binding mankind by written laws, without laying 
an adequate foundation for the authority of those laws, and 
without constituting living judges to decide upon them ! 

Neither has the Divine wisdom, in founding the spiritual 
kingdom of his church, acted in that inconsistent manner. The 
Almighty did not send a book, the New Testament, to Chris- 
tians, and, without so much as establishing the authority of that 
book, leave them to interpret it, till the end of time, each one 
according to his own opinions or prejudices. But our blessed 
Master and Legislator, Jesus Christ, having first demonstrated 
his own divine legation from his heavenly Father by undeniable 
miracles, commissioned his chosen apostles, by word of mouth, 
to proclaim and explain, by word of mouth, his doctrines and 
precepts to all nations, promising to be with them in the execu- 
tion of this office of his heralds and judges, even to the end of 
the world. This implies the power he had given them, of or- 
daining successors in this office, as they themselves were only 
to live the ordinary term of human life. True it is, that, during 
the execution of their commission, he inspired some of them, 
and of their disciples, to write certain parts of these doctrines 
and precepts, namely, the canonical gospels and epistles, which 
they addressed, for the most part, to particular persons and on 



* Comment, on the Laws, Introduce sect. iii. 

t Ibid. sect. iii. p. 73, 8th edit. X Ibid. p. 69. 



THE TRUE RULE. 



particular occasions ; but these inspired writings, by no means, 
rendered void Christ's commission to the apostles and their suc- 
cessors, of preaching and explaining his word to the nations, or 
his promise of being ' ; with them" till the end of time. On the 
contrary, the inspiration of these very writings is not otherwise 
known than by the viva voce evidence of these depositories and 
judges of the revealed truths. — This analysis of revealed reli- 
gion, so conformable to reason and the civil constitution of our 
country, is proved to be true, by the written word itself — by 
the tradition and conduct of the apostles — and by the constant 
testimony and practice of the fathers and doctors of the church 
in all ages. 

II. Nothing then, dear sir, is further from the doctrine and 
practice of the Catholic Church than to slight the Holy Scrip- 
tures. So far from this, she had religiously preserved and per- 
petuated them, from age to age, during almost 1500 years be- 
fore Protestants existed. She has consulted them, and con- 
firmed her decrees from them in her several councils. She 
enjoins her pastors, whose business it is to instruct the faithful, 
to read and study them without intermission, knowing that "All 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for 
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous- 
ness." 2 Tim. iii. 16. Finally, she proves her perpetual right 
to announce and explain the truths and precepts of her divine 
Founder, by several of the strongest and clearest passages con- 
tained in Holy Writ.* Such, for the example, is the last com- 
mission of Christ, alluded to above : " Go ye therefore and 
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe 
all the things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo ! I 
am with you all days, even to the end of the world." Matt, 
xxviii. 19, 20. And again, "Go ye into all the world, and 
preach the Gospel to every creature." Mark, xvi. 15. It is 
preaching and teaching then, that is to say, the unwritten word, 
which Christ has appointed to be the general method of propa- 
gating his divine truths : and, whereas he promises to be with 
his apostles to the end of the world ; this proves their authority in 
expounding, and shows that the same authority was to descend 
to their legitimate successors in the sacred ministry, since they 
themselves were only to live the ordinary term of human life. 
In like manger the following clear texts prove the authority of 
the apostles and their, successors, for ever ; that is to say, the 
authority of the ever-living and speaking tribunal of the church, 

* St. Austin uses this argument against the Donatists : " In Scripturis 
discimus Christum, in scripturis discimus Ecclesiam. Si Christum teneatis, 
quare Ecclesiam non tenetis ?" 



64 



LETTER X. 



in expounding our Saviour's doctrine. " I will pray the Fa- 
ther, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may 
abide with you for ever." — " The Comforter, which is the Holy 
Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name ; he shall teach 
you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, 
whatsoever I have said unto you." John, xiv. 16, 26. St. 
Paul, speaking of both the unwritten and the written word, puts 
them upon a level, where he says, " Therefore, brethren, stand 
fast and hold the tradition ye have been taught, whether by 
word or our epistle." 2 Thess. v. 13. Finally, St. Peter pro- 
nounces that " No prophecy of Scripture is of any private in- 
terpretation." 2 Pet. i. 20. 

III. That the apostles, and the apostolical men whom they 
formed, followed this method prescribed by their Master, is un- 
questionable ; as we have positive proofs from Scripture, as 
well as from ecclesiastical history, that they did so. St. Mark, 
after recording the above-cited admonition of preaching the gos- 
pel, which Christ left to his apostles, adds, " And they went 
forth and preached everywhere ; the Lord working with them, 
and confirming the word with signs following." Mark, xvi. 20. 
St. Peter preached throughout Judea and Syria, and last of all, 
in Italy and at Rome ; St. Paul throughout Lesser Asia, 
Greece, and as far as Spain ; St. Andrew penetrated into 
Scythia ; St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew into Parthia and 
India, and so of the others ; everywhere converting and in- 
structing thousands, by word of mouth ; founding churches, and 
ordaining bishops and priests to do the same. " They ordained 
them priests in every church." Acts, xiv. 22. " For this 
cause," says St. Paul to Titus, " I left thee in Crete, that thou 
shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and shouldest 
ordain priests in every city, as I had appointed thee." Tit. i. 5. 
And to Timothy : " The things that thou hast heard of me 
among many witnesses, the same commit thou to those faithful 
men who shall be able to teach others also." 2 Tim. ii. 2. If 
any of them wrote, it was on some particular occasion, and, 
for the most part, to a particular person, or congregation, with- 
out either giving directions, or providing means of communica- 
ting their epistles or their gospels to the rest of the Christians 
throughout the world. Hence it happened, as I have before 
remarked, that it was not till the end of the fourth century, 
that the canon of Holy Scriptures was absolutely settled as it 
now stands. True it is, that the apostles, before the^ separated 
to preach the gospel to different nations, agreed upon a short 
symbol or profession of faith, called " The Apostles' Creed," 
but even this they did not commit to writing :* and whereas they 

* Ruffin. Inter Opera Hieron. 



THE TRUE RULE. 



m 



made this, amongst other articles of it, " I believe in the Holy 
Church,"* they made no mention at all of the Holy Scriptures. 
This circumstance confirms what their example proves, that 
the Christian doctrine and discipline might have been propagated 
and preserved by the unwritten word, or tradition, joined with 
the authority of the church, though the Scriptures had not been 
composed ; however profitable these most certainly are " for 
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in right- 
eousness." 2 Tim. iii. 16. I have already quoted one of the 
ornaments of your church, who says, that " the canonical epis- 
tles (and he might have added the gospels) are not regular 
treatises upon the Christian religion :"j* and I shall have occa- 
sion to show from an ancient father, that this religion did pre- 
vail and flourish soon after the age of the apostles, among na- 
tions which were not even acquainted with the use of letters. 

IV. However light Protestants of this age may make of the 
ancient fathers, as theological authorities,:]: they cannot object 
to them as faithful witnesses of the doctrine and discipline of 
the church in their respective times. It is chiefly in the latter 
character that I am going to bring forward a certain number of 
them, to prove that, during the five first ages of the church, no 
less than in the subsequent ages, the unwritten word, or tradi- 
tion, was held by her in equal estimation with the Scripture 
itself, and that she claimed a divine right of propounding and 
explaining them both. 

I begin with the disciple of the apostles, St. Ignatius, Bishop 
of Antioch. It is recorded of him that, in his passage to Rome, 
where he was sentenced to be devoured by wild beasts, he ex- 
horted the Christians, who got access to him, " to guard them- 
selves against the rising heresies, and to adhere with the utmost 
firmness to the tradition of the apostles. The same senti- 
ments appear in this saint's epistles, and also in those of his 
fellow-martyr, St. Polycarp, " the angel of the Church of 
Smyrna."! 

One of the disciples of the last-mentioned holy bishop was 
St. Irenseus, who passing into Gaul became Bishop of Lyons. 

* The title Catholic was afterwards added, when heresies increased, 
t Elements of Theology, vol. ii. 

t Jewel, Andrews, Hooker, Morton, Pearson, and other Protestant di- 
vines of the 16th and 17ih centuries, labored hard to press the fathers into 
their service, but with such bad success, that the succeeding controversial- 
ists gave them up in despair. The learned Protestant Casaubon, confessed 
that the fathers were all on the Catholic side ; the equally learned Obrectcth 
testifies that, in reading their works, " he was frequently provoked to throw 
them on the ground, finding them so full of Popery ;" while Middleton heaps 
every kind of obloquy upon them. 

§ Euseb. Hist, 1 iii. c. 30. || Revel, ii. 8. 

6* 



66 



LETTER X. 



He has left twelve books against the heresies of his time, which 
abound with testimonies to the present purpose ; some few of 
which I shall here insert. He writes, " Nothing is more easy 
to those who seek for the truth, than to remark in every church 
the tradition which the apostles have manifested to all the world. 
We can name the bishops appointed by the apostles in the sev- 
eral churches, and the successors of those bishops down to our 
own time, none of whom ever taught,. or heard of such doctrines 
as these heretics dream of."* This holy father emphatically af- 
firms that, " In explaining the Scriptures, Christians are to at- 
tend to the pastors of the church, who, by the ordinance of God, 
have received the inheritance of truth, with the succession of 
their sees."f He adds, •" The tongues of nations vary, but the 
virtue of tradition is everywhere one and the same : nor do the 
churches in Germany believe or teach differently from those in 
Spain, Gaul, the East, Egypt, or Lybia. 5 "^: " Since it would 
be tedious to enumerate the succession of all the churches, we 
appeal to the faith and tradition of the greatest, most ancient, 
and best known church — that of Rome, founded by the apos- 
tles, SS. Peter and Paul ; — for, with this church all others 
agree, in as much as in her is preserved the tradition which 
comes down from the apostles."§ " SUPPOSING THE APOS- 
TLES HAD NOT LEFT US THE SCRIPTURES, OUGHT 
WE NOT STILL TO HAVE FOLLOWED THE ORDI- 
NANCE OF TRADITION, which they consigned to those to 
whom they committed the churches ? It is this ordinance of 
tradition which many nations of barbarians, believing in Christ, 
follow, without the use of letters or ink."|| 

Tertullian, who flourished 200 years after the Christian era, 
has left us, amongst his other works, one of the same nature, 
and almost the same title with that last cited. In this, speak- 
ing of the contemporary heretics, he says, " They meddle with 
the Scriptures, and adduce arguments from them ; for, in treat- 
ing of faith, they pretend that they ought not to argue upon 
any other ground than the written documents of faith : thus 
they weary the firm, catch the weak, and fill the middle sort 
with doubt. We begin, therefore, with laying it down as a 
maxim, that these men ought not to be allowed to argue at all 
from Scripture. — In fact these disputes about the sense of 
Scripture have generally no other effect than to disorder either 
the stomach or the brain. — -It is, therefore, the wrong method to 
appeal to the Scriptures, since these afford either no decision, 
or, at most, only a doubtful one. And even if this were not 



* Advers. Haeres. 1. iii. c. 5. t L. iv. c. 43. t L i. c. 3, 

$ h. iii, c, 2. (I L. iv. c, 64 f 



THE TRUE RULE. 



67 



the case, still, in appealing to Scripture, the natural order of 
things requires that we should first inquire to whom the Scrip- 
tures belong ? From whom and by whom, and on what occa- 
sion, and to whom, that tradition was delivered by which we be- 
came Christians ? For where the truth of Christian discipline 
and faith is found, there is the truth of Scripture, and of the in- 
terpretation of it, and of all Christian traditions."* He else- 
where says, " That doctrine is evidently true which was first 
delivered : on the contrary, that is false which is of a later 
date. — This maxim stands immovable against the attempts of 
all late heresies. — Let such then produce the origin of their 
churches : let them show the succession of their bishops from 
the apostles, or their disciples. — If you live near Italy, you see 
before your eyes the Roman Church : happy church ! to which 
the apostles have left the inheritance of their doctrine with 
their blood ! Where Peter was crucified, like his Master; 
where Paul was beheaded like the Baptist ! — If this be so, it is 
plain, as we have said, that heretics are not to be allowed to 
appeal to Scripture, since they have no claim to it. — Hence it is 
proper to address them as follows : 1 Who are you ? Whence 
do you come 1 What business have you strangers with my 
property ? By what right are you, Marcion, felling my trees ? 
By what authority are you, Valentine, turning the course of 
my streams ? Under what pretence are you, Apelles, re- 
moving my land-marks ? The estate is mine : I have the 
"ancient, the prior possession of it. I have the title-deeds de- 
livered to me by the original proprietors. I am the heir of 
the apostles ; they have made their will in my favor : while 
they disinherited and cast you off, as strangers and enemies. "f 
In another of his worksf this eloquent father proves, at great 
length, the absolute necessity of admitting tradition no less 
than Scripture as the rule of faith, inasmuch as many important 
points, which he mentions, cannot be proved without it. 

I pass by other shining lights of the third century, such as 
St. Clement, of Alexandria, St. Cyprian, Origen, &c, all of 
whom place apostolical tradition on a level with Scripture, 
and describe the church as the expounder of them both. I must, 
however, give the following words from the last-named great 
biblical scholar. He says : " We are not to credit those who, 
by citing real canonical Scripture, seem to say, ' Behold, the 
word is in your houses;' for we are not to desert our first 
ecclesiastical tradition, nor to believe otherwise than as the 
churches of God have, in their perpetual succession, delivered 
to us." 

* Praescrip. Advers. Haeres. edit. Rhenan, pp. 36, 37. t Ibid, 
t De Corona Milit, 



LETTER X. 



Among the numerous and illustrious witnesses of the fourth 

age, I shall be content with citing St. Basil and St. Epiphanius. 
The former says, " There are many doctrines preserved and 
preached in the church, derived, partly from written documents, 
partly from apostolical tradition, which have equally the same 
force in religion, and which no one contradicts, who has the 
least knowledge of the Christian laws."* The last quoted father 
says, with equal brevity and force, " We must make use of tra- 
dition, for all things are not to be found in Scripture. "f 

St. John Chrysostom flourished at the beginning of the fifth 
century; and, though he strongly recommends the reading of 
the Holy Scriptures, yet expounding the text, (2 Thess. ii. 14,) 
he says : " Hence it is plain that the apostles did not deliver 
to us every thing by their epistles, but many things without 
writing. These are equally worthy of belief. Hence let us 
regard the tradition of the church as the subject of our belief. 
Such and such a thing is a tradition : seek no further."\ It 
would fill a large volume to transcribe all the passages which 
occur in the works of the great St. Augustin, in proof of the 
Catholic rule, and the authority of the church in making use 
of it : let, therefore, two or three of them speak for the rest. 
"To attain to the truth of the Scriptures." he says, "we must 
follow the sense of them entertained by the universal church, 
to which the Scriptures themselves bear testimony. True it is, 
the Scriptures themselves cannot deceive us ; nevertheless, to 
prevent our being deceived in the question we examine by 
them, it is necessary we should advise with that church, which 
these certainly and evidently point out to us.§ This (the un- 
lawfulness of rebaptizing heretics) is not evidently read either 
by you or by me ; nevertheless, if there were any wise man, to 
whom Christ had borne testimony, and whom he had appointed 
to be consulted on the question, we could not fail to do so : now 
Christ bears this testimony to his church. Whoever, therefore, 
refuses to follow the practice of the church, resists Christ him- 
self, who, by his testimony, recommends this church. ;5 || Treat- 
ing elsewhere the same subject, he says : " The apostles, indeed, 
have prescribed nothing about this ; but the custom must be 
considered as derived from their tradition, since there are many 
things observed by the universal church, which are justly held 
to have been appointed by the apostles, though they are not 
written. "IT It seems doing an injury to St. Vincent, of Lerins, 
who lived at the end of the fifth century, to quote a part of his 
celebrated Commonitorium, when the whole of it is so admirably 

* In Lib. de Spir. Sane. t De Haeres. N. 61. 

% UapaSosis ten, ntftv rrXcov 2/jTei. 

§ L. i. contra Crescon. U De Util. Cred. IT De Bapt. contra Donat, 1. 



THE TRUE RULE, 



69 



calculated to refute the false rule of heretics, condemned in the 
foregoing testimonies, and to prove the Catholic rule here laid 
down ; still I cannot refrain from transcribing a small portion 
of it. " It is asked," says this father, " as the Scripture is per- 
fect, what need is there of the authority of the church doctrine ? 
The reason is, because the Scripture, being so profoundly deep, 
is not understood by all persons in the same sense, but different 
persons explain it different ways ; so that there are almost as 
many meanings as there are readers of it. Novatian interprets 
it in one sense, Photinus in another, Arius, &c, in another. 
Therefore it is requisite that the true road of expounding the 
prophets and apostles must be marked out according to the ec- 
clesiastical Catholic line. 

" It never was, nor is, or will be, lawful for Catholic Chris- 
tians to teach any doctrine except that which they once received ; 
and it ever was, and is, and will be their duty to condemn those 
who do so. Do the heretics then appeal to the Scriptures ? 
Certainly they do, and this with the utmost confidence. You 
will see them running hastily through the different books of 
Holy Writ, those of Moses, Kings, the Psalms, the Gospels, &c. 
At home and abroad, in their discourses and in their writings, 
they hardly produce a sentence which is not larded with the 
words of Scripture, &c. ; but they are so much the more to be 
dreaded, as they conceal themselves under the veil of the divine 
laws. Let us, however, remember, that Satan transformed 
himself into an angel of light. If he could turn the Scriptures 
against the Lord of Majesty, what use may he not make of them 
against us poor mortals ! If then Satan, and his disciples the 
heretics, are capable of thus perverting Holy Scripture, how are 
Catholics, the children of the church, to make use of them, so 
as to discern truth from falsehood? They must carefully ob- 
serve the rule laid down at the beginning of this treatise, by the 
holy and learned men I referred" to : THEY ARE TO IN- 
TERPRET THE DIVINE TEXT ACCORDING TO THE 
TRADITION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH."* 

It would be as easy to prove this rule of faith from the fathers 
of the sixth, as of the former centuries, particularly from St. 
Gregory the Great, that holy pope, who, at the close of this cen- 
tury, sent missionaries from Rome to convert our pagan ances- 
tors. But, I am sure, you will think that sufficient evidence 
has been brought to show that the ancient fathers of the church, 
from the very time of the apostles, held this " whole rule of 
fkitfr," namely, the Word of God, " unwritten as well as writ- 

* Vincent Lerins Commonit. Advers. Haer. edit. Baluz. An English trans. 
»ation of this little work has lately been published. 



LETTER XL 



ten," together with " the living, speaking tribunal of the 
church," to preserve and interpret both the one and the other. 

I am, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XL— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. 

THE TRUE RULE. 

Dear Sir — 

The infinite importance of determining with ourselves which 
is the right rule or method of discovering religious truth, must 
be admitted by all thinking Christians, as it is evident that this 
rule alone can conduct them to truth, and that a false rule is 
capable of conducting them into all sorts of errors. It is equally- 
clear why all those, who are bent upon deserting the Catholic 
Church, reject her rule, that of the " whole word of God," to- 
gether with her " living authority" in explaining it : for, while 
this rule and this authority are acknowledged, there can be no 
heresy nor schism among Christians, as whatever points of reli- 
gion are not clear from Scripture, are supplied and illustrated 
by tradition ; and as the pastors of the church, who possess this 
authority, are always living, and ready to declare what is the 
sense of Scripture, and what the tradition, on each contested 
point, which they have received in succession from the apostles, 
the only resource, therefore, of persons resolved to follow their 
own or their forefathers' particular opinions or practices, in 
matters of religion, with the exception of the enthusiasts, has 
been in all times, both ancient and modern, to appeal to mere 
Scripture, which, being a dead letter, leaves them at liberty to 
explain it as they will. 

I. And yet, with all their repugnance to tradition and church 
authority, Protestants have found themselves absolutely obliged, 
in many instances, to admit of them both. It has been demon- 
strated above, that they are obliged to admit of tradition, in order 
to admit of Scripture itself. Without this, they can neither know 
that there are any writings at all dictated by God's inspiration, 
nor which, in particular, these writings are,* nor what versions 
or publications of them are genuine. But as this matter has 
been sufficiently elucidated, I proceed to other points of religion, 
which Protestants receive, either without the authority of Scrip- 
ture, or in opposition to the letter of it. 

* Among all the learned Protestants of this age, Dr. Porteus is the only 
one who pretends to discern Scripture, " partly on account of its own rea. 
sonableness, and the characters of divine wisdom in it." — Brief Confut., p. 9. 
I could have wished to ask his lordship, whether it is by these characters that 
he has discovered the Canticle or Song of Solomon to be inspired Scripture. 



THfi TftUE tiVLt. 



n 



The first precept in the Bible is that of sanctifying the sev- 
enth day : " God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, 57 
Gen. ii. 3. This precept was confirmed by God in the ten 
commandments : " Remember the sabbath-day to keep it. holy. 
The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God,'* Exod. 
xx. On the other hand, Christ declares that he is not come to 
destroy the law, but to fulfil it, Matt. v. 17. He himself observed 
the sabbath : " And, as his custom was, he went into the syna- 
gogue on the sabbath-day," Luke iv. 16. His disciples like- 
wise observed it after his death : " They rested on the sabbath- 
day, according to the commandment," Luke xxiii. 56. Yet 
with all this weight of Scripture authority for keeping the sab- 
bath or seventh day holy, Protestants of all denominations make 
this a profane day, and transfer the obligation of it to the first 
day of the week, or the Sunday. Now what authority have they 
for doing this 1 None whatever, except the unwritten word, or 
tradition, of the Catholic Church, which declares that the apos- 
tles made the change in honor of Christ's resurrection, and the 
descent of the Holy Ghost on that day of the week. Then, with 
respect to the manner of keeping that day holy, their universal 
doctrine and practice are no less at variance with the sacred 
text. The Almighty says, " From even unto even shall you 
celebrate your sabbath," (Levit. xxiii. 32,) which is the prac- 
tice of the Jews down to the present time, but not of any Protes- 
tants that ever I heard of. In like manner, it is declared in 
Scripture to be unlawful to dress victuals on that day, (Exod. 
xvi. 23,) or even to make a fire, Exod. xxxv. 3. Again, I ask, 
where is there a precept in the whole Scripture more express 
than that against eating blood 1 God said to Noah, " Every 
moving thing that liveth shall be meat to you ; but flesh with 
the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat," 
Gen. ix. 4. This prohibition we know was confirmed by Moses, 
(Levit. xvii. 11, Deut. xii. 23,) and strictly imposed by the 
apostles upon the Gentiles who were converted to the faith, Acts 
xv. 20. Nevertheless, where is the religious Protestant who 
scruples to eat gravy with his meat, or puddings made of blood ? 
At the same time, if he be asked, Upon what authority do you 
act in contradiction to the express words of both the Old and 
the New Testament? he can find no other answer than that 
he has learned, from the tradition of the church, that the prohi- 
bition was only temporary. I will confine myself to one moie 
instance of Protestants abandoning their own rule, that of Scrip- 
ture alone, to follow ours, of Scripture explained by tradition. 
If an intelligent pagan, who had carefully perused the New 
Testament, were asked which of the ordinances mentioned in it 
is most explicitly and strictly enjoined, I make no doubt but he 



LETTER SI. 



would answer that it is " the washing of feet." To convince 
you of this, be pleased to read the first seventeen verses of St. 
John, c. xiii. Observe the motive assigned for Christ's per- 
forming the ceremony there recorded — namely, his " love for his 
disciples :" next, the time of his performing it — -namely, when 
he was about to depart out of this world. Then remark the 
stress he lays upon it, in what he said to Peter : " If I wash thee 
not, thou hast no part with me." Finally, his injunction at the 
conclusion of the ceremony, " If I, your Lord and Master, have 
washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet." 
I now ask, on what pretence can those who profess to make 
Scripture alone the rule of their religion totally disregard this 
institution and precept ? Had this ceremony been observed in 
the church when Luther and the other first Protestants began 
to dogmatize, there is no doubt but they would have retained 
it ; but, having learned from her that it was only figurative, 
they acquiesced in this decision, contrary to what appears to be 
the plain sense of Scripture. 

II. I asserted that Protestants find themselves obliged not 
only to adopt the rule of our church, on many the most im- 
portant subjects, but also to claim her authority. It is true, 
as a late dignitary of the establishment observes,* that " When 
Protestants first withdrew from the communion of the Church of 
Rome, the principles they went upon were such as these : 
Christ, by his Gospel, hath called all men to the liberty, the 
glorious liberty, of the sons of God, and restored them to the 
privilege of working out their own salvation by their own un- 
derstanding and endeavors. For this work, sufficient means 
are afforded in the Scriptures, without having recourse to the 
doctrines and commandments of men. Consequently, faith and 
conscience, having no dependence upon man's laws, are not to 
be compelled by man's authority." What now was the conse- 
quence of this fundamental rule of Protestantism ? Why, that 
endless variety of doctrines, errors, and impieties, mentioned 
above ; followed by those tumults, wars, rebellions and an- 
archy, with which the history of every country is filled that 
embraced the new religion. It is readily supposed that the 
princes ana other rulers of those countries, ecclesiastical as 
well as civil, however hostile they might be to the ancient 
church, would wish to restrain these disorders, and make their 
subjects adopt the same sentiments with themselves. Hence, 
in every Protestant state, articles of religion, and confessions of 
faith, differing from one another, but each agreeing with the 
opinion of the princes and rulers of the state for the time being, 



* Archdeacon Blackburn in his celebrated Confessional, p. 1. 



THE TRUE RULE. 



73 



were enacted by law, and enforced by excommunication, de- 
privation, exile, imprisonment, torture, and death. These latter 
punishments indeed, however frequently they were exercised by 
Protestants against Protestants, as well as against Catholics, 
during the 16th and 17th centuries," have not been resorted to 
during the last hundred years ; but the terrible sentence of ex- 
communication, which includes outlawry, even now hangs over 
the head of every Protestant bishop, as well as other clergyman 
in this country,f who shall interpret those passages of the Gos- 
pel concerning Jesus Christ in the sense which, it appears from 
their writings, a number of them entertain ; in the mean time 
none o^f them can take possession of any living, without sub- 
scribing to the 39 articles, and publicly declaring his unfeigned 
assent and consent to them, and to every tiling contained in the 
Book of Common Prayer. ± Thus, by adopting a false rule of 
religion, thinking Protestants are reduced to the cruel extrem- 
ity of palpably contradicting themselves ! They cannot give 
up " the glorious liberty," as it is called above, of explaining 
the Bible each one for "himself, without, at once, giving up their 
cause to the Catholics ; and they cannot adhere to it, without 
many of the above-mentioned fatal consequences, and without the 
speedy dissolution of their respective churches. Impatient of 
the constraint they are under, in being obliged to sign articles of 
faith which they do not believe, many able clergymen of the 
establishment have written strongly against them, and have 
even petitioned Parliament to be relieved from the alleged 
grievance of subscribing to the professed doctrine of their own 
church. § On the other hand, the legislature, foreseeing the 
consequences which would result from the removal of the obli- 
gation, have always rejected their prayer; and the judges have 
even refused to admit the following salvo added to their sub- 
scription : "I assent and consent to the articles and the book, 
as far as these are agreeable to the word of GgcI.'''\\ In these 
straits, many of the most able, as well as the most respectable, 
of the established clergy, have been reduced to such sophistry 
and casuistry, as to move the pity of their very opponents. 

* See the Letter on the Reformation and on Persecution, in Letters to a 
Prebendary. See also Neale's History of the Puritans, Delaur.e's Narra- 
tive, Sewell's History of the Quakers, &c. 

t See many excommunicating Canons, and par.ieularly one A. D. 1640, 
against " the damnable and cursed heresy of Socinianism," as it is termed 
in Bishop Sparrow's Collection, p. 335. 

X 1st Eliz. cap. ii.— 14 Car. II. c. 4. Item. Canon 36 et 38. 

§ There was such a petition signed by a great number of clergymen, 
and supported by many others in 1773, 

|! See Confessional, p. 183. 

7 



74 



LETfER XI. 



One of these, the Nomsian professor of divinity at Cambridge. * 
as an expedient for excusing his brethren in subscribing to 
articles which they do not believe, cites the example of the 
divines at Geneva, where he says, " a complete tacit reforma- 
tion seems to have taken place. The Genevese" have now, in 
fact, quitted their Calvinistie doctrines, though, in form, they 
retain them. When the minister is admitted, he takes an oath 
of assent to the Scriptures, and professes to teach them- accord- 
ing to the catechism of Calvin ; but this last clause about Calvin, 
he makes a separate business ; speaking lower, or altering his 
posture, or speaking after a considerable interval. ,} f Such a 
change of posture or tone of voice in the swearer, our learned 
professor considers as sufficient to excuse him from the guilt of 
prevarication, in swearing contrary to the plain meaning of his 
oath ! It is not, however, intimated that the professor himself 
has recourse to this expedient : his particular system is, that 
" the Church of England, like that of Geneva, has, of late, 
undergone a complete tacit reformation^ — and hence that the 
sense of its articles of faith is to be determined by circum- 
stances. "§ Thus he adds (referring, I presume, to the statutes 
of King's College, Cambridge,) the -oath, " I will say so many 
masses for the soul of Henry VI., may come to mean, I will 
perform the religious duties required of me The celebra- 

ted moralist, Dr. Paley, justifies a departure from the original 
sense of the articles of religion subscribed, by an INCON- 
VENIENCE " which is manifest and beyond all doubt ! t "IT 
Archdeacon Powell, Master of St. John's College, defends the 
English clergy from the charge of subscribing to what they do 
not believe ; because, he says, " The crime is impossible ; as 
that cannot be the sense of the declaration which no one ima- 
gines to be its sense ; nor can that interpretation be erroneous 
which all have received !"** And yet such prelates as Seeker, 
Horsley, Cleaver, Prettyman, with all the judges, strongly 
maintain that the literal meaning of the articles mast be strictly 
adhered to ! 

I could cite many other dignitaries or leading clergymen of 
the establishment, and nearly the whole host of dissenters, who 
have had recourse to such quibbles and evasions, in order to 

* Lectures in Divinity, delivered in the University of Cambridge, by ? 
Hey, D. D. as Norrisian Professor, 1797, vol. ii. p. 57. t Ibid. 

X Ibid, vol. ii. p. 48, (particularly in its approach to Socinianism, from 
which he signifies it is divided only by a few unmeaning woids.) 

§ Ibid. p. 49. II P. 62. 

IT Moral and Polit. Philos. Not having this work or Dr. Powell's Ser- 
mon on hand, I here quote from Overton's True Churchman, p. 337. 
** Serm. on Subscrip. 



THfi TRUE BttLE* 



get rid of the plain sense of the articles and creeds, to which 
they had solemnly engaged themselves before their Creator, as, 
I am convinced, they would not make use of in any contract 
with a fellow-creature : hut I hasten to take in hand the ad- 
mired discourses of my friend, Dr. Balguy. He was the 
champion, the very Achilles, of those who defended the sub- 
scription of the 39 articles, against the petitioners for the abro= 
gation of it, in 1772. And how, think you, dear sir, did he 
defend it ? Not by vindicating the truth of the articles them- 
selves ; much less by any of the quibbles mentioned or alluded 
to above ; but upon the principle, that an exterior show of uni- 
formity in the ministers of religion is necessary for the support 
of it ; and that, therefore, they ought to subscribe and teach the 
doctrine prescribed to them by the law, whatever they may 
inwardly think of it. Thus it was that he, and many of his 
friends, imagined it possible to unite religious liberty with ec- 
clesiastical restrictions. But I will give you the archdeacon's 
own words in one of his charges to his clergy. " The articles, 
we will say, are not exactly what we might wish them to be* 
Some of them are expressed in doubtful terms ; others are 
inaccurate, perhaps unphihsophical ; others again may chance 
to mislead an ignorant reader into some erroneous opinions ;* but 
is there any one among them that leads to immorality ? Is there 
one in the number that will make us revengeful or cruel V 
&c.f On this principle, you might in the eastern world, con- 
scientiously swear your assent and consent to the fables of the 
Koran or the Vedam ! ! But, to proceed, he says : " Nothing is 
clearer than that the uniform appearance of religion is the cause 
of its general and easy reception. Destroy this uniformity, and 
you cannot but introduce doubt and perplexity into the minds of 
the people-. "+ Again, he says: "I am far from wishing to 
discourage the clergy of the established church from thinking 
for themselves, or from speaking what they think, nor even from 
writing. I say nothing against the right of private judgment or 
speech, I only contend that men ought not to attack the church 
from those very pulpits, in which they are placed for her de- 
fence.''^ What is this doctrine of the subscription champion, 

* Which articles they are, that the doctor particularly objects to, we can 
easily gather from his general language concerning mysteries,, the sacra- 
ments, and our redemption by Christ, On this last head, he seriously cau- 
tions us against " censuring or persecuting our brethren, because their won. 
scnve and ours wears a different dress." Charge ii. p. 192. 

t Charge vi. p. 293. t Charge v. p. 257. 

§ Disc. vii. p. 120. Discourses by Thomas Balguy, D. D., Archdeacon 
and Prebendary of Winchester, &c, dedicated to the king. Lockyer Da» 
vies, 1785, 



76 



LETTER Xf, 



dear sir, I appeal to you, but a defence of the most vile and 
sacrilegious hypocrisy that can possibly be imagined ? He 
leaves the clergy at liberty to disbelieve in, to talk, and even to 
write against the doctrine of their church ; but requires them in 
the pulpit to defend it! I agree with him thai contradictory 
doctrines publicly maintained by ministers of the same religion, 
tend greatly to make the adherents of it renounce it entirely ; 
but will not that effect more certainly follow from the people's 
discovering, as they must, in the case supposed, discover, thai 
their clergy do not themselves believe in the doctrines which they 
preach ? 

But this system of deceiving the people is not peculiar to Dr, 
Balguy : it is avowed by his friend and master, Bishop Hoadley, 
and represented by Archdeacon Blackburn, from whom I take 
the following passage, as being very generally adopted.* " In 
all proposals and schemes to be reduced to practice/"' the bishop 
says, " we must suppose the world to be what it is, and not what 
it ought to be. We must propose, not merely what is absolutely 
good in itself, but. what is so with respect to the prejudices, tem- 
pers, and constitutions, we know and are sure to be among us. 
It is represented that the world was never less disposed to be 
serious and reasonable than at this period. Religious reflection, 
we are informed, is not the humor of the times.— We are there- 
fore advised to keep our prudence and our pp,tience a little 
longer ; to wait till our people are in a better temper, and, in 
the mean time, to bear with their manners and disposition ; 
gently and gradually correcting their foolish notions and habits : 
hut still taking care not to throw in more light upon them, at once, 
than the weak optics of men, so long 'used to sit in darkness, are 
able to bear.'' His lordship's words are guarded, but perfectly 
intelligible. Bishop Hoadley had undermined the church he 
professed to support, in her doctrine and discipline,, as has been 
elsewhere demonstrated, f and he wished all the clergy to co- 
operate in diffusing his Socinian system ; but he advised them 
to attempt this "gently and gradually," bearing with the peo- 
ple's "foolish notions," and "not throwing too much light upon 
them at once ;" in other words, continuing to subscribe the Ar- 
ticles and to preach them from the pulpit, being, at the same 
time, inwardly persuaded that they are not only false, but also 
foolish ! I will add, not only foolish, but also impious and idol- 
atrous, namely, by worshipping Christ as God, whom the sub- 
scriber believes to be merely man ! Thus, dear sir, you have 
seen the necessity to which the different Protestant societies have 

* Confessional, pp. 375, 385. 

+ Letters to a Prebendary, Art. Hoadleyism, 



THE TRUE RULE. 



7? 



found themselves reduced, of occasionally appealing to tradition, 
and of assuming authority to dictate confessions and articles of 
religion, in direct violation of their" boasted charter of private 
judgment ; and you have seen that this inconsistency has ren- 
dered " the remedy worse than the disease.'"' These weapons, 
not being natural to them, have been turned against them, and 
have mortally wounded them ; and the ' ; Church of England in 
particular," as one of its principal defenders complains, " is like 
an oak, cleft to shivers with wedges made of its own body."* 
You will now see with what ease and success the Catholic 
Church wields these weapons ; but first, I think it best to add 
something by way of confirming and elucidating this Catholic 
rule. , • 

III. What has been said above in proof of the Catholic rule, 
namely, that Christ established it when he sent his apostles to 
preach the Gospel, and that the apostles followed it when they 
established churches throughout different nations, is so ineontes- 
tible as not to be denied by any of our learned opponents : still 
less will they deny, that the ancient fathers, and the doctors of 
the church, in every age, maintained this rule. Accordingly, 
one of the latest and most learned Protestant controvertists writes 
thus : " No one will deny that Jesus Christ laid the foundation 
of his church by preaching ; nor can we deny that tlie unwritten 
zoord was the first rule of Christianity.'^ This being granted, it 
was incumbent on his lordship to demonstrate, and this by no less 
an authority than that which established the rule, at what precise 
period it was abrogated. Was it when this gospel or that gospel, 
when this epistle or that epistle was written, though known only 
to particular congregations or persons, was it then that the pas- 
tors of the church lost their authority of proclaiming: " So we 
have received from the apostles, or the disciples of the apostles: 
so all the other pastors of the Catholic Church believe and 
teach V° Or was this abrogation of the " first rule of Christiani- 
ty" deferred till the canon of Scripture was fixed at the end of 
the fourth century ? 1 So far from there being divine authority, 
there is not even a hint in ecclesiastical history, on which to 
ground this pretended alteration in the rule of faith. His lord- 
ship's only foundation is his own conjecture ; " It is extremely 
improbable," he says, " that an all-wise Providence, in imparting 
a new revelation to mankind, would suffer any doctrine or arti- 
cle of faith to be transmitted to posterity by so precarious a ve- 
hicle as that of oral tradition.":}: The Bishop of London§ had 
before said nearly the same thing, as well with respect to tradi- 

* Daubeny's Guide to the Church. Appen. t Comparative View 

of ihe Churches, p. 61, by. Dr. (now Bishop) Marsh. t Ibid. p. 67. 

£ Dr. PorteiiE, Brief ConC 

7* 



78 



LETTER XI. 



tion being the original rule, as to the improbability of its continu- 
ing to be so, " considering," as he says. how liable the easiest 
story, transmitted by word of mouth, is to be essentially al 
in the course of one or two hundred years." But, to the opinions 
of these learned prelates, I oppose, in the first place, undeniable 
facts. It is, then, certain, that the whole doctrine and practice 
of religion, including the rites of sacrifice, and, indeed, the 
whole Sacred History, was preserved by the patriarchs, in suc- 
cession from Adam down to Moses, during the space of 2,400 
years, by means of tradition : and when the law was written, 
many most important truths regarding a future life, the em- 
blems and prophecies concerning the Messiah, and the inspira- 
tion and authenticity of the sacred books themselves, were pre- 
served in the same way. Secondly, it is unreasonable in these 
prelates, to compare the essential traditions of religion with or- 
dinary stories : in the truth of these no one has an interest, and 
no means have been provided to preserve them from corruption ; 
whereas, with respect to the faith once delivered to the saints, the 
church has ever guarded it as "the apple of her eye." All 
ecclesiastical history witnesses the extreme care and pains 
which, in ancient times, were taken by the pastors to instruct 
the faithful in the tenets and practices of their religion, pre- 
viously to their being baptized.* The same are generally taken 
by their successors, previously to the confirmation and first 
communion of their neophytes, at the present day. Thirdly, 
when any fresh controversy arises in the church, the funda- 
mental maxim of the bishops and popes, to whom it belongs to 
decide upon it, is, not to consult their own private opinion or 
interpretation of Scripture, but to inquire " what is and has 
ever been the doctrine of the church," concerning it. Hence, 
their cry is and ever has been, on such occasions, as well in 
her councils as out of them : " So we have received : so the 
universal church believes : let there be no new doctrine ; none 
but what has been delivered down to us by tradition."!— 
Fourthly, the tradition of which we now treat, is not a local but 
an universal tradition, as widely spread as the Catholic Church 
itself is, and everywhere found the same. The maxim of the 
sententious Tertullian must be admitted : " Error, of course, 
varies ; but that doctrine which is one and the same among 
many, is not an error but a tradition. "J However liable men, 
and particularly illiterate men, are to believe in fables, yet if. 
on the discovery of America, the inhabitants of it, from Hud- 

* See Fleury's Moeurs de Chret. Hartley in B.Watson's Col. vol. v. p. 91 
t " Nil innovetur : nil nisi quod traditum est." Steph. Papa I. 
X " Variasse deberet error, sed quod unum apud multos invenitur, non est 
erratum, sed traditum." Prsescrip. advers. Hseret, 



THE TRUE RULE. 



n 



son's Bay to Cape Horn, had been found to agree in the same 
account of their origin and general history, we should certainly 
give credit to them. But, fifthly, in the present case, they are 
not the Catholics alone of different ages and nations, who vouch 
for the traditions in question — [ mean those rejected by Pro- 
testants—but all the subsisting heretics and schismatics of form- 
er ages without exception. The Nestorians and Eutychians, for 
example, deserted the Catholic Church, in defence of opposite 
errors, near 1,400 years ago, and still form regular churches, 
under bishops and patriarchs, throughout the East : in like man- 
ner the Greek schismatics, properly so called, broke off from 
the Latin Church, for the last time, in the eleventh century. 
Theirs is well known to be the prevailing religion of Christians 
throughout the Turkish and Russian empires. ^ Nevertheless, 
these and all the other Christian sectaries of ancient dates, in 
every article in dispute between Catholics and Protestants, (ex- 
cept that concerning the pope's supremacy,) agree with the 
former and condemn the latter.* Let Dr. Porteus, and the other 
controvertists who declaim against the alleged ignorance and 
vices of the Catholic clergy and laity, during the five or six 
ages preceding the Reformation, and pretend to show how the 
tenets which they object to might have been introduced into our 
church, explain how precisely the same could have been quietly 
received by the Nestorians at Bagdad, the Eutychians at Alex- 
andria, and the Russian Greeks at Moscow ! All these, and 
particularly the last named, were ever ready to find fault with , 
us upon subjects of comparatively small consequence, such as 
the use of unleavened bread in the sacrament, the days and 
manner of our fasting, and even the mode of shaving our beards ; 
and yet, so far from objecting to the pretended novelties of pray- 
ers for the dead, addresses to the saints, the mass, the real pre- 
sence, &c, they have always professed, and continue to profess, 
these doctrines and practices as zealously as we do. 

Finally, by way of further answer to his lordship's shameful 
calumny, that the ancient " clergy and laity were so universally 
and monstrously ignorant and vicious, that nothing was too bad 
for them to do, or too absurd for them to believe," thereby in- 
sinuating that the former invented, and the latter were duped 
into, the belief of the articles on which the Catholic Church 
and the Church of England are divided ; as also by way of fur- 
ther confirming the certainty of tradition, I maintain that it 
would have been much easier for the ancient clergy to corrupt 
the Scriptures, than the religious belief of the people. For, it 

* See the proofs of this in the Perpetuite de la Foi, copied from the origi. 
nal documents in the French king's library, 



30 



LETTER XI. 



is well known that the Scriptures were chiefly in the hands of 
the clergy, and that, before the use of printing, in the fifteenth 
century, the copies of it were renewed and multiplied in the 
monasteries by the labor of the monks, who, if they had been 
so wicked, might, with some prospect of success, have attempted 
to alter the New Testament, in particular, as they pleased i 
whereas the doctrines and practices of the church were in the 
hands of the people of all civilized nations, and, therefore, 
could not be altered without their knowledge and consent. 
Hence, wherever religious novelties had been introduced, a vio- 
lent opposition to them, and of course, tumults and schisms 
would have ensued. If they had been generally received 
in one country, as, for example, in France, this would have 
been an occasion of their being rejected with redoubled anti- 
pathy in a neighboring hostile nation, as, for instance, Eng- 
land. Yet none of these disturbances or schisms do we read 
of, respecting any of the doctrines or practices of our religion 
objected to by Protestants, either in the same kingdom, or among 
the different states of Christianity. I said that the doctrines 
and practices of religion were in the hands of all "the people.'*' 
In fact, they were all, in every part-of the church, obliged to 
receive the holy sacrament at Easter ; now they could not do 
this without knowing whether they had been previously taughl 
to consider this as bread and wine taken in memory of Christ, or 
as the real tody and blood of Christ himself. If they had ori- 
ginally held the former opinion, could they have been persuaded 
or dragooned into the latter, without violent opposition on their 
part, and violent persecution on that of their clergy? Again, 
they could not assist at the religious services performed at the 
funerals of their relations, or on the festivals of the saints, 
without recollecting, whether they had previously been in- 
structed to pray for the former, and to invoke the prayers of the 
latter. If they had not been so instructed, would they, one 
and all, at the same time, and in every country, have quietly 
yielded to the first impostors who preached up such supposed 
superstitions to them ; as, in this case, we are sure they must 
have done 1 In a word, there is but one way of accounting for 
the alleged alterations in the doctrines of the church, that men- 
tioned by the learned Dr. Bailey ;* which is, to suppose that, on 
some one night, all the Christians of the world went to sleep 
sound Protestants, and awoke the next morning rank Papists ! 

IV. I now come to consider the benefits derived from the 
Catholic rule or method of religion. The first part of this rule 

* He was son of the Bishop of Bangor, and becoming a convert to tho 
Catholic Church, wrote several works in her defence ; and, among the rest 
one under the title of these letters, and another that of A Challenge, 



THE TRUE RULE, 



81 



cond ids us to the second part ; that is to say, tradition conducts 
us to Scripture. We have seen that Protestants, by their own 
confession, are obliged to build the latter upon the former ; in 
doing which they act most inconsistently : whereas Catholics, 
in doing the same thing, act with perfect consistency. Again, 
Protestants, in building Scripture, as they do, upon tradition, as 
a mere human testimony, not as a rule of faith, can only form 
an act of human faith, that is to say, an opinion of its being in- 
spired ;* whereas Catholics, believing in the tradition of the 
church, as a divine rule, are enabled to believe in the Scrip- 
tures with a firm faith, as the certain word of God. Hence the 
Catholic Church requires her pastors, who are to preach and 
expound the word of God, to study this second part of her rule, 
no less than the first part, with unremitting diligence ; and she 
encourages those of her flock, who are properly qualified and 
disposed, to read it for their edification. 

In perusing the books of the Old Testament, some of the 
most striking passages are those which regard the prerogatives 
of the future kingdom of the Messiah ; namely, the extent, the 
visibility, and indefectibility of the church : in examining the 
New Testament, we find in several of its clearest passages, the 
strongest proofs of its being an infallible guide in the way of 
salvation. The texts alluded to have been already cited. 
Hence we look upon the church with increased veneration, and 
listen to her decisions with redoubled confidence. But here I 
think it necessary to refute an objection, which, I believe, was 
first started by Dr. Stillingfleet, and 'has since been adopted by 
many other controvertists. The)' say to us, you argue in, what 
logicians call, a vicious circle : for you prove Scripture by your 
church, and then your church by Scripture. \ This is like John 

* Chillingworth in his Religion of Protestants, chap, ii., expressly teaches, 
that " The books of Scripture are not the objects of our faith," and that " a 
man may be saved, who should not believe them to be the word of God " 

t Certain respectable persons having expressed a wish that the writer 
had given a more detailed answer to the vulgar objections, that Catholics 
argue in, what logicians call a circulus vitiosus, by proving the church 
from the Scripture, and the Scripture from the church ; he here adds the 

following analysis, or explanation of his faith. 1 believe the Catholic 

Church, and therefore every thing which she teaches, upon the motives of 

credibility, namely, her unity, sanctity, &c. which accompany her. Now, 

among other things which she teaches me, is this, that a certain book, which 
she has always carefully kept in her possession, called the Scriptures, is the 

inspired word of God. Examining this book, among many things hard to 

be understood, I find several things very easy and clear, particularly those 
which regard the church herself ; namely, that she is founded on a rock, 
against which the gates of hell shall not prevail; that Christ will remain 
with her for ever; and that his Holy Spirit shall teach her all truth; 
finally, that she is the pillar and foundation of truth. These divine testu 



S3 



LETTER XI. 



giving a character to Thomas, anal Thomas a character to John. 
■ — True it is, that I prove the inspiration of Scripture by the 
tradition of the church, and that I prove the infallibility of the 
church by the testimony of Scripture, which are two distinct 
things ; but you must take notice, that independently of, and 
prior to, the testimony of Scripture, I knew from tradition, and 
the general arguments of the credibility of Christianity, that 
the church is an illustrious society, instituted by Christ, and 
that its pastors have been appointed by him to guide me in the 
way of salvation. In a word, it is not every kind of mutual 
testimony which runs in a vicious circle : for the Baptist bore 
testimony to Christ, and Christ bore testimony to the Baptist. 

V. The advantage, and even necessity,. of having a living, 
speaking authority for preserving peace and order in every so- 
ciety, is too obvious to be called in question. The Catholic 
Church has such an authority ; the different societies of Protest- 
ants, though they -claim it, cannot effectually exercise it, as we 
have shown, on account of their opposite fundamental principle 
of private judgment. Hence, when debates arise among Catho- 
lics concerning points of faith, (for as to scholastic and other 
questions, each one is left to defend his own opinion,) the 
pastors of the church, like judges in regard of civil con- 
tentions, fail not to examine them by the received rule of 
faith, and to pronounce an authoritative sentence upon them. 
The dispute is thus quashed, and peace is restored: for "if 
any party will not hear the church, he is," of course, regarded 
as "a heathen and a publican." On the other hand, dissen- 
sions in any Protestant society, which adheres to its fundamen- 
tal rule of religious liberty, must be irremediable and endless. 

VI. The same method which God has appointed to keep 

monies confirm and increase my veneration for, and my confidence in the 
church, which church, however, I had learnt to revere and believe, before I 

opened the Scriptures. Thus the phantom of a circulus vitiosus, in 

which two unproved things are adduced to prove each other, which Protest- 
ants have conjured up against the faith of Catholics, quite disappears. — To 
elucidate this matter more clearly, I will suppose myself to live in a remote 
part of the island, where a personage, with all the insignia and other moral evi- 
dence of his being the king's delegate, presents himself to me and delivers 
me a letter, which he assures me was written to me by his majesty. My 
first care, in common prudence, is to ascertain the character and credibility 
of the messenger. These being made out to my entire satisfaction, I open 
the royal letter, in which, among other things, I read as follows : " The 
bearer of this letter is fully informed of our royal meaning and will, as to the 
contents of it, and of every thing relating to your duty and our service : you 
will therefore give the same credit to his declarations, as if they were per 
sonally given you by ourselves." Hav<»ig perused this passage of the letter 
my respect for the messenger cannot but increase, though, at first, I believed 
it to come from the king upon his testimony. 



THE TRUE RULE. 



II 



peace in his church, he has also appointed to preserve it in the 
breasts of her several children. Hence, while other Christians, 
who have no rule of faith but their own fluctuating opinions, 
" are carried about by every wind of doctrine," and are agitated 
by dreadful doubts and fears, as to the safety of the road they 
are in ; Catholics, being moored to the rock of Christ's church, 
never experience any apprehension whatsoever on this head. 
The truth of this may be ascertained by questioning pious 
Catholics, and particularly those who have been seriously con- 
verted from any species of Protestantism. Such persons are 
generally found to speak in raptures of the peace and security 
they enjoy in the communion of the Catholic Church, compared 
with their doubts and fears before they embraced it. Still the 
death-bed is evidently the best situation for making this inquiry. 
I have mentioned, in my former letter, that great numbers of Pro- 
testants, at the approach of death, seek to be reconciled to the 
Catholic Church. Many instances of this are notorious, though 
many more, for obvious reasons, are concealed from public no- 
tice. On the other hand, a challenge has been frequently 
made by Catholics (among the rest by Sir Toby Matthews, 
Dean Cressy, F. Walsingham, Molines dit Flechiere, and Ulric, 
Duke of Brunswick, all of them converts) to the whole world, 
to name a single Catholic, who, at the hour of death, expressed 
a wish to die in any other communion than his own ! 

I have now, dear sir, fully proved what I undertook to prove 
— that the rule of faith professed by rational Protestants, that 
of " Scripture as interpreted by each person's private judg- 
ment," is no less fallacious than the rule of fanatics, who im- 
agine themselves to be directed by an individual, private inspi- 
ration. I have shown that this rule is evidently unserviceable 
to infinitely the greater part of mankind ; that it is liable to 
lead men into error, and that it has actually led vast numbers 
of them into endless errors and shocking impieties. The proof 
of these points w T as sufficient, according to the principles I laid 
down at the beginning of our controversy, to disprove the rule 
itself ; but I have, moreover, demonstrated that our Divine Mas- 
ter, Christ, did not establish this rule, nor his apostles follow it ; 
that the Protestant churches, and that of England in particular, 
were not founded according to this rule ; that individual Protest- 
ants have not been guided by it in the choice of their religion ; 
and, finally, that the adoption of it leads to uncertainty and un- 
easiness of mind in life, and more particularly at the hour of 
death. On the other hand, I have shown that the Catholic rule, 
that of the entire word of God, unwritten as well as written, 
together with the authority of the living pastors of the church 
in explaining ft, was appointed by Christ ; was followed bvtp° 



84 



LETTER XII. 



apostles ; was maintained by the holy fathers ; has been re- 
sorted to from necessity, in both particulars, by the Protestant 
congregations, though with the worst success, from the impos- 
sibility of uniting private judgment with it ; that tradition lays 
a firm ground for divine faith in Scripture ; that these two 
united together as one rule, and each bearing testimony to the 
living, speaking authority of the church in expounding that rule, 
this church is preserved in peace and union through all ages 
and nations ;* and, in short, that Catholics, by adhering to this 
rule and authority, live and die in peace and security, as far as 
regards the truth of their religion. 

It remains for you, dear sir, and your religious friends, who 
have called me into the field of controversy, to determine which 
of the two methods you will follow, in settling; your religious 
concerns for time and FOR. ETERNITY ! Were it possible 
for me to err in following the Catholic method, with such a mass 
of evidence in its favor, methinks I could" answer at the judg- 
ment-seat of Eternal Truth, with a pious writer of the middle 
ages : " Lord, if I have been deceived, thou art the author of 
my error. "-j- Whereas, should you be found to have mis- 
taken the right way, by depending upon your own private opin- 
ion, contrary to the directions of your authorized guides, what 
would you be able to allege in excuse for such presumption ? 
Think of this while you have time, and pray humbly and earn- 
estly for God's holy grace to enlighten and strengthen you. 

I am, dear sir, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XII.— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. &c. 

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 

Dear sir — 

I am not forgetful of the promise I made in my last letter but 
one, to answer the contents of those which I had then received 
from yourself, Mr. Topham, and Mr. Askew. Within these 
few days I have received other letters from yourself and Mr. 
Topham, which, equally with the former, call for my attention. 
However, as it would take up a great deal of time to write sepa- 
rate answers to each of these letters, and, as I know that they 
are arguments and not formalities which you expect from me, 
I shall make this letter a general reply to the several objections 
contained in them all, with the exception of such as have been 
answered in my last to you. Conceiving, also, that it will con- 
tribute to the brevity and perspicuity of my letter, if I arrange 

* " Domicillium pads et unitatis."— S. Cyp. Ep. 46. t Hugh of St. Victor.. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



35 



the several objections, from whomsoever they came, under theii 
proper heads, and if, on this occasion, I make use of the scho- 
lastic instead of the epistolary style, I shall adopt both these 
methods. I must, however, remark, before I enter upon my 
task, that most of the objections appear to have been borrowed 
from the Bishop of London's book, called a Brief Confutation of 
the Errors of Popery. This was extracted from Archbishop 
Seeker's Sermons on the same subject, which, themselves, were 
culled out of his predecessor Tillotson's pulpit controversy. 
Hence you may justly consider your arguments as the strongest 
which can be brought against the Catholic rule and religion. 
Under this persuasion, the work in question has been selected 
for gratuitous distribution by your tract societies, wherever they 
particularly wish to restrain or suppress Catholicity. 

Against the Catholic rule it is objected, that Christ referred 
the Jews to the Scriptures : " Search the Scriptures ; for in 
them ye think ye have eternal life : and they are they which 
testify of me," John, v. 35. Again, the Jews of Berea are com- 
mended by the sacred penman, " in that they search the Scrip- 
tures daily, whether these things were so," Acts, xvii. 11. 

Before I enter on the discussion of any part of Scripture, with 
you or your friends, I am bound, dear sir, in conformity with 
my rule of faith, as explained by the fathers, and particularly by 
Tertullian, to protest against your and their right to argue from 
Scripture, and, of course, must deny that there is any necessity 
of my reptying to any objections which you may draw from it. 
For I have reminded you that no prophecy of Scripture is of any 
private interpretat'on ; and I have proved to you that the whole 
business of the Scriptures belongs to the church. She has pre- 
served them, she vouches for them, and she alone, by confront- 
ing the several passages with each other, and with tradition, 
authoritatively explains them. Hence it is impossible that the 
real sense of Scripture should ever be against her and her doc- 
trine ; and hence, of course, I might quash every objection 
which you can draw from any passage in it by this short reply : 
The church understands the passage differently from you : there- 
fore you mistake its meaning. Nevertheless, as charity beareth 
all things and never faileth, I will, for the better satisfying of 
you and your friends, quit my vantage ground for the present, 
and answer distinctly to every text, not yet answered by me, 
which any of your gentlemen, or which Dr. Porteus himself, 
has brought against the Catholic rule or method of religion. 

By way of answering your first objection, let me ask you, 
whether Christ, by telling the Jews to - search the Scriptures," 
intimated that they were not to believe in his unwritten word, 
which he was then preaching, nor to hear " his apostles and 

8 



86 



LETTER XII. 



their successors," with whom he promised " to remain for ever V 
I ask, secondly, on what particular question Christ referred to 
the Scripture — namely, the Old Scripture, for no part of the 
New was then written ? Was it on any question that has been 
or might be agitated among Christians ? No, certainly. The 
sole question between him and the infidel Jews was, whether he 
was or was not the Messiah. In proof that he was the Messiah, 
he adduced the ordinary motives of credibility, as they have been 
detailed by your late worthy rector, Mr. Carey, namely, the 
miracles he wrought, and the prophecies in the Old Testament 
that were fulfilled in him, as likewise the testimony of St. John 
the Baptist. The same is to be said of the commendations be- 
stowed by St. Luke on the Bereans. They searched the an- 
cient prophecies, to verify that the Messiah was to be born at 
such a time and in such a place, and that his life and his death 
were to be marked by such and such circumstances. We still 
refer Jews and other infidels to the same proofs of Christianity, 
without saying any thing yet to them about our rule of faith or 
judge of controversies. 

Dr. Porteus objects what St. Luke says at the beginning of 
his gospel : " It seemed good to me also, having had perfect un- 
derstanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee, 
in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know 
the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed." 
Again, St. John says, c. xx. : " These things are written that 
ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and 
that believing, ye might have life through his name." 

Answer. It is difficult to conceive how his lordship can 
draw an argument from these texts against the Catholic rule. 
Surely he does not gather from the words of St. Luke, that 
Theophilus did not believe the articles in which he had been in- 
structed by word of mouth till he read his gospel ! or that the 
evangelist gainsayed the authority given by Christ to his disci- 
ples : " He that heareth you heareth me," which he himself 
records, Luke, x. 16. In like manner the prelate cannot sup- 
pose, that this testimony of St. John sets aside other testimo- 
nies of Christ's divinity, or that our belief in this single article, 
without other conditions, will ensure eternal life. 

Having quoted these texts, which to me appear so inconclu- 
sive, the bishop adds, by way of proving that Scripture is suffi- 
ciently intelligible : "Surely the apostles were not worse wri- 
ters, with divine assistance, than others commonly are without it." 

I will not here repeat the arguments and testimonies already 
brought to show the great obscurity of a considerable portion of 
the Bi^le, particularly with respect to the bulk of mankind ; 
because it is sufficient to refer to the clear words of St. Peter 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



87 



declaring that there are in the epistles of St. Paul. " Some 
things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable 
wrest, as they do all the uther Scriptures, unto their own de- 
struction," (2 Peter, iii. 16,) and to the instances which occur in 
the gospels, of the very apostles frequently misunderstanding 
the meaning of their Divine Master. 

The learned prelate says elsewhere : " The New Testament 
supposes them (the generality of people) capable of judging for 
themselves, and, accordingly, requires them not only, to try the 
spirits whether they be of God, (1 John, iv. 1,) but to prove all 
tilings, and holdfast that which is good." 1 Thess. v. 21. 

Answer. True, St. John tells the Christians, to whom he 
writes, to " try the spirits whether they are of God : because," 
he adds, " many false prophets are gone out into the world : " 
but then he gives them two rules for making trial : "Hereby ye 
know the Spirit of God. Every Spirit that confesseth that 
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit 
that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (which 
was denied by \he heretics of that time, the disciples of Simon 
and Cerinthus) is not of God." In this the apostle tells the 
Christian, to see whether the doctrine of these spirits was, or 
was not, "conformable to that which they had learned from the 
church." The second rule was : " He that knoweth God hear- 
eth us ; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know 
we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error : " namely, he bids 
them observe whether these teachers did or did not listen to the 
divinely constituted pastors of the church. Dr. Porteus is evi- 
dently here quoting Scripture for our rule, not against it. The 
same is to be said of the other text. Prophecy was exceeding- 
ly common at the beginning of the church : but, as we have just 
seen, there were false prophets, as well as true prophets. 
Hence, while the apostle defends this supernatural gift in gene- 
ral, " Despise not prophesyings," he admonishes the Thessa- 
lonians to prove them ; not certainly by their private opinions, 
which would be the source of endless discord ; but by the es- 
tablished rules of the church, and, particularly, by that which 
he tells them "to hold last," (2 Thess. ii. 15,) namely, tradition. 

Dr. P., in another place, urges the exhortation of St. Paul to 
Timothy : "Continue thou in the things which thou hast learn- 
ed and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast 
learned them : and that from a child thou hast known the Holy 
Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise to salvation, 
through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspi- 
ration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof," &c. 
2 Tim. iii. 

Answer. Does, then, the prelate mean to say, that the form 



86 



LETTER XII. 



of sound words which Timothy had heard from St. Paul, and 
which he was commanded to hold fast, 2 Tim. i. 13, was all 
contained in the Old Testament, the only Scripture which he 
could have read in his childhood 1 Or that, in this he could 
have learned the mysteries of the trinity and the incarnation, or 
the ordinances of baptism and the eucharist ? The first part 
of the question is a general commendation of tradition, the lat- 
ter of Scripture. 

Against tradition, Dr. P. and yourself quote Mark vii., where 
the Pharisees and scribes asked Christ : " Why walk not thy 
disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread 
with unwashed hands? He answered and said to them : in 
vain do they worship me, teaching FOR* doctrines the com- 
mandments of men. For, laying aside the commandment of 
God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and 
cups," &c. 

- Answer. Among the traditions which prevailed at the time 
of our Saviour, some were divine, such as the inspiration of the 
books of Moses and the other prophets, the resurrection of the 
body, and the last judgment, which assuredly Christ did not 
condemn but confirm. There were others merely human, 
and of a recent date, introduced, as St. Jerom informs us, by 
Sammai, Killel, Achiba, and other Pharisees, from which 
the Talmud is chiefly gathered. These, of course, were never 
obligatory. In like manner there are among Catholics "divine 
traditions," such as the inspiration of the gospels, the observa- 
tion of the Lord's day, the lawfulness of invoking the prayers of 
the saints, and other things not clearly contained in Scripture : 
and there are, among many Catholics, historical and even fabu- 
lous traditions. f Now it is to the former, as avowed to be di- 
vine by the church, that we appeal : of the others every one 
may judge as he thinks best. 

You both, likewise, quote Coloss. ii. 8, " Beware lest any 
man spoil (cheat) you through philosophy and vain deceit, after 
the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not 
after Christ." 

Answer. The apostle himself informs the Colossians what 
kind of traditions he here speaks of, where he says : " Let no 
man therefore judge you in meat or drink, or in respect of any 
holiday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days." The 

* This particle FOR, which in some degree affects the sense, is a corrup. 
interpolation, as appears from the original Greek. N. B. The texts which 
Dr. P. refers to, I quote from the common Bible : his citations of it are fre- 
quently inaccurate. 

t Such are the acts of several saints condemned by Pope Gelasius : such 
also was the opinion of Christ's reign upon earth for a thousand years. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



89 



ancient fathers and ecclesiastical historians inform us that, in 
the age of the apostles, many Jews and pagan philosophers pro- 
fessed Christianity, but endeavored to ally with it their respec- 
tive superstitions, and vain speculations, absolutely inconsistent 
with the doctrine of the gospel. It was against these St. Paul 
wrote ; not against those traditions which he commanded his 
converts to hold fast to, whether they had been taught by word or 
or by epistle, 2 Thess. ii. 15 ; nor against those traditions 
which he commended his other converts for keeping, 1 Cor. xi. 
2.* Finally, the apostle in that passage did not abrogate this 
his awful sentence : " Now we command you, brethren, in the 
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves 
from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the 
tradition which ne received of us." 2 Thess. iii. 6. 

Against the infallibility of the church in deciding questions 
of faith, I am referred to various other arguments made use of 
by Dr. Porteus ; and, in the first place, to the following : " Ro- 
manists themselves own that men must use their eyes to find 
this guide ; why then must they put them out to follow him ? " 
I answer by the following comparisons. Every prudent man 
makes use of his reason to find out an able physician to take 
care of his health, and an able lawyer to secure his property ; 
but having found these to his full satisfaction, does he dispute 
with the former about the quality of medicines, or with the 
latter about forms of law ? Thus the Catholic makes use of 
his reason to observe which, among the rival communions, is 
the church that Christ established and promised to remain with : 
having ascertained that, by the plain acknowledged marks 
which this church bears, he trusts his soul to her unerring 
judgment, in preference to his own fluctuating opinion. 

Dr. Porteus adds: " Ninety-nine parts in every hundred of 
their (the Catholic) communion, have no other rule to follow 
but what a few priests and private writers tell them." Ac- 
cording to this mode of reasoning, a loyal subject does not 
make any act of the legislature the rule of his civil conduct, 
because, perhaps, he learns it only from a printed paper, or the 
proclamation of the bell-man. Most likely the Catholic peasant 
learns the doctrine of the church from his parish priest ; but 
then he knows that the doctrine of this prfest must be conform- 
able to that of his bishop, and that otherwise he will soon be 
called to an account for it ; he knows also that the doctrine of 
the bishop himself must be conformable to that of the other 
bishops and the pope ; and that it is a fundamental maxim with 

* The English Testament puts the word ordinances here for traditions, 
contrary to the sense of the original Greek, and even to the authority of Beza, 

8* 



90 



LETTER XII. 



them all. never to admit of any tenet, but such as is believed 

by all the bishops, and was believed by their predecessors up 
to the apostles themselves. 

The prelate gives a " rule for the unlearned and ignorant in 
religion, (that is to say of ninety-nine in every hundred of them,) 
which is this : Let each man improve his own judgment and 
increase his own knowledge as much as he can ; an*d be fully 
assured that God will expect no more." What 1 If Christ 
has given some apostles, anal some prophets, and some evangelists, 
and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting the saints, for 
the work of the ministry, Ephes. iv. 11, does he not expect that 
Christians should hearken to them, and obey them 1 The pre- 
late goes on : " In matters, for which he must rely on authority,'' 
(mere Scripture then and private judgment, 'according to the 
bishop himself, are not always a sufficient rule even for Pro- 
testants, but they must in some-matters rely on church author- 
ity,) " in matters, for which he must rely on authority, let him 
rely on the authority of that church which God's providence 
has placed him under," (that is to say, whether Catholic, Pro- 
testant, Socinian, Antinomian, Jewish, &c.) " rather than an- 
other which he hath nothing to do w T ith," (every Christian has, 
or ought to have, something to do with Christ's true church,) 
and " trust to those, who, by encouraging free inquiry, appear 
to love truth ; rather than such as, by requiring all their doc- 
trines to he implicitly obeyed, seem conscious that they will 
not bear to be fairly tried." What, my lord ; would you have 
me trust those men who have just now deceived me, by assur- 
ing me that I should not stand in need of guides at all, rather 
than those who told me, from the first, of the perplexities in 
which I find myself entangled ! Again, do you advise me to 
prefer these conductors, who are forced to confess that they 
may mislead me, to those others, who assure me, and this upon 
strong grounds, that they will conduct me with perfect safety ! 

Our Episcopal controvertist finishes his admonition " To the 
ignorant and unlearned," with an address calculated for the stu- 
pid and bigoted. Fie says: "Let others build on fathers and 
popes, on traditions and councils, what they will : let us continue 
firm, as we are, on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
Jesus Christ himself^ being the chief corner-stone." Ephes. ii. 
What empty declamation [ Do then the fathers, popes, and 
councils profess or attempt to build religion on any other founda- 
tion than the revelation made by God to the apostles and prophets ? 
His lordship knows full well that they do not, and that the only 
questions at issue are these three : 1st, Whether this revelation 
has not been made and conveyed by the unwritten, as well as 
by the written word of God ? 2dly, Whether Christ did not 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



91 



commit this word to his apostles and their successors " till the 
end of the world," for them to preserve and announce it ? 
Lastly, whether, independently of this commission, it is consist- 
ent with common sense, for each Protestant ploughman and 
mechanic, to persuade himself that he, individually, (for he 
cannot, according to his rule, build on the opinion of other Pro- 
testants, though he could find any whose faith exactly tallied 
with his own,) that he, I say, individually, understands the 
Scriptures better than all the doctors and bishops of the church, 
who now are, or ever have been since the time of the apostles.* 
One of your Salopian friends, in writing to me, ridicules the 
idea of infallibility being lodged in any mortal man, or number 
of men. Hence it is fair to conclude that he does not look upon 
himself to be infallible ; now nothing short of a man's convic- 
tion of his own infallibility, one might think, would induce him 
to prefer his own judgment, in matters of religion, to that of 
the church of all ages and all nations. Secondly, if this objec- 
tion were • valid, it would prove that the apostles themselves 
were not infallible. Finally, I could wish your friend to form 
a right idea of this matter. The infallibility, then, of our 
church is not a power of telling all things past, present, and to 
come, such as the pagans ascribed to their oracles ; but merely 
the aid of God's Holy Spirit, to enable her truly to decide what 
her faith is, and ever has been, in such articles as have been 
made known to her by Scripture and tradition. This definition 
furnishes answers to divers other objections and questions of 
Dr. P, The church does not decide the controversy concerning 
the conception of the blessed Virgin, and several other dispu- 
ted points, because she sees nothing absolutely clear and cer- 
tain concerning them, either in the written or the unwritten 
word ; and therefore leaves her children to form their own 
opinions concerning them. She does not dictate an exposition 
of the whole Bible, because she has no tradition concerning a 
very great proportion of it, as for example, concerning the pro- 
phecy of Enoch, quoted by Jude 14, and the oaptism for the 
dead, of which St. Paul makes mention, 1 Cor. xv. 29, and the 
chronologies and genealogies in Genesis. The prelate urges 
that the words of St. Paul, where he declares that, " The 
church of God is the pillar and ground of truth," 1 Tim. iii. 
15, may be translated a different way from that received. — ■ 
True : they may, but not without altering the original Greek, 
as also the common Protestant version. He says : it was or- 

* The great Bossuet obliged the minister, Claude, in his conference with 
him, openly to avow this principle ; which, in fact, every consistent ProU 
estant must avow, who maintains his private interpretation of the Bible t« 
be the only rule of his faith. 



LETTER XII. 



dained in the old law that every controversy should be decided 

by the priests and Levites, Deut. xvii. 8, and yet that these 
avowedly erred in rejecting Christ. — True : but the law had 
then run its destined course, and the divine assistance failed the 
priests in the very act of their rejecting the promised Messiah, 
who was then before them. — He adds, that St. Paul, in his 
epistle to the Church of Rome, bids her not to be high-minded, 
hut fear : for (he adds) if God spared not the Jews, take heed 
lest he also spare not thee, Rom. xi. — Supposing the quotation to 
be accurate, and that the threat is particularly addressed to the 
Christians of Rome ; what is that to the present purpose ? We 
never supposed the promises of Christ to belong to them or their 
successors, more than to the inhabitants of any other city. In- 
deed it is the opinion of some of our most learned commenta- 
tors, that before the end of the world, Rome will relapse into its 
former paganism.* In a word, the promises of our Saviour, 
that helVs gates shall not prevail against his church — that his 
Holy Spirit shall lead it into all truth — and that he himself will 
remain with it for ever, were made to the church of all nations 
and all times, in communion with St. Peter and his successors, 
the bishops of Rome : and as these promises have been fulfilled, 
during a succession of eighteen centuries, contrary to the usual 
and natural course of events, and by the visible protection of 
the Almighty ; so we rest assured that he will continue to fulfil 
them, till the church militant shall be wholly transformed into 
the church triumphant in the heavenly kingdom. 

Finally, his lordship, with other controvertists, objects 
against the infallibility of the Catholic Church, that its advocates 
are not agreed where to lodge this prerogative ; some ascribing 
it to the pope, others to a general council, or to the bishops 
dispersed throughout the church. — True : schoolmen discuss 
some such points ; but let me ask his lordship, whether he 
finds any Catholic who denies or doubts that a general council, 
with the pope at its head, or that the pope himself, issuing a 
doctrinal decision, which is received by the great body of Cath- 
olic bishops, is secure from error ? Most certainly not : and 
hence he may gather where all Catholics agree in lodging infal- 
libility. In like manner, with respect to our national constitu- 
tion ; some lawyers hold that a royal proclamation, in such and 
such circumstances, has the force of a law ; others, that a 
vote of the house of lords, or of the commons, or of both houses 
together, has the same strength : but all subjects acknowledge, 
that an act of the king, lords, and commons, is binding upon 
them ; and this suffices for all practical purposes. 



* See Cornel, a Lapid. in Apocalyp. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



But when, dear sir, will there be an end of the objections and 
cavils of men, whose pride, ambition, or interest leads them to 
deny the plainest truths 1 You have seen those which the in- 
genuity and learning of the Porteuses, Seekers, and Tillotsons 
have raised against the unchangeable Catholic rule and inter- 
preter of faith : say, is there any thing sufficiently clear and 
certain in them, to oppose to the luminous and sure principles 
on which the Catholic method is placed ? Do they afford you 
a sure footing, to support you against all doubts and fears on 
the score of your religion, especially under the apprehension of 
approaching dissolution ? If you answer affirmatively, I have 
nothing more to say ; but if you cannot so answer; and, if you 
justly dread undertaking your voyage to eternity on the pre- 
sumption of your private judgment, a presumption which you 
have clearly seen has led so many other rash Christians to cer- 
tain shipwreck, follow the example of those who have happily 
arrived at the port which you are in quest of. In other words, 
listen to the advice of the holy patriarch to his son : Then To- 
bias answered his father — I know not the way, Sfc; — then. his 
father said — Seek thee a faithful guide. Tob. v. You will no 
sooner have sacrificed your own wavering judgment, and have 
submitted to follow the guide, whom your heavenly Father has 
provided for you, than you will feel a deep conviction that you 
are in the right and secure way ; and very soon you will be 
enabled to join with the happy converts of ancient and modern 
times,* in this hymn of praise : " I give thee thanks. O God, 
my enlightener and deliverer, for that thou hast opened the eyes 
of my soul to know thee. Alas ! too late have I known thee, 
O ancient and, eternal truth ! too late have I known thee." 

I am, dear sir, yours, &c. 

John Milner. 

* St. Austin's Soliloquies, c. 33, quoted by Dean Cressy, Exomol. p. 655. 



THE END OF PART I. 



THE 

END OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY, 



PART II, 



" There are many other things which keep me in the hosom of the Catholic 
Church. The agreement of different people and nations keeps me there. The 
authority established by miracles, nourished by hope, increased by charity, and 
confirmed by antiquity, keeps me there. The succession of bishops in the see 
of St. Peter, the apostle, (to whom our Lord, after his resurrection, committed 
his sheep to be fed,) down to the present bishop, keeps me there. Finally, the 
very name of CATHOLIC, which, among so many heresies, this church alone 
possesses, keeps me there." — St. Augustin, Doctor of the Church, A. D. 400, 
contra Epist. Fundam. c* 4. 

ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TRUE 
CHURCH. 



LETTER XIII.— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. &c< 

ON THE TRUE CHURCH. 

Dear sir-— 

The letters which I have received from you, and some other? 
of your religious society, satisfy me that I have not altogether 
lost my labor in endea voring to prove to you, that the private 
interpretation of Holy Scripture is not a more certain rule of faith 
than an imaginary private inspiration is ; and, in short, that the 
Church of Christ is the only sure expounder of the doctrine of 
Christ. Thus much you, sir, in particular, candidly acknow- 
ledge : but you ask me, on the part of some of your friends, as 
well as yourself, why, in case you " must rely on authority," 
as Bishop Porteus confesses " the unlearned must," that is to 
say, the great bulk of mankind — why, I say, you should not, as 
he advises you, " rely on the authority of that church, which 
God's providence hath placed you under, rather than on that of 
another which you have nothing to do with,"* and why you 
may not trust to the Church of England, in particular, to guide 

* Confutation of Errors of Popery, p. 20. 



1HE TRUE CHURCH, 



95 



you in your road to heaven, with equal security as to the Church 
of Rome ? — Before I answer you, permit me to congratulate 
with you on your advance towards the clear sight of the whole 
truth of revelation. As long as you profess to hunt out the 
several articles of divine revelation, one by one, through the 
several books of Scripture, and under all the difficulties and 
uncertainties which, as I have clearly shown, attend this stud}-, 
your task was interminable, and your success hopeless ; 
whereas now, by taking the church of God for your guide, you 
have but one simple inquiry to make, " Which is this church ? 5 
A question that admits of being solved by " men of good will," 
with equal certainty and facility. I say, there is but one in- 
quiry to be made, namely, ■" Which is the true church 1 ?" be- 
cause if there is any one religious truth more evident than the 
others from reason, from the Scriptures, both Old* and New,f 
from the Apostles' Creed,:}: and from constant tradition, it is this : 
that "the Catholic Church preserves the true worship of the 
Deity-— she being the fountain of truth, the house of faith, and 
the temple of God," as an ancient father of the church expresses 
it.§ Hence it is as clear as the noonday-light, that by solving 
this one question, " Which is the true church?" you will at 
once solve every question of religious controversy that ever has 
been, or that ever can be agitated. You will not need to spend 
your life in studying the Sacred Scriptures in their original lan- 
guages, and their authentic copies, and in confronting passages 
with each other, from Genesis to Revelations — a task by no 
means calculated, as is evident, for the bulk of mankind ; you 
will only have to hear what the church teaches upon the seve- 
ral articles of her faith, in order to know with certainty what 
God has revealed concerning them. Neither need you hearken 

* Speaking of the future church of the Gentiles, the Almighty thus prom- 
ises, by Isaiah : " Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear, &c. : as I have 
sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have 
sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the moun- 
tains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart 
from thee," &c, liv. See also lix., lx., Ixiii. Jerem. xxxiii. Ezech. xxxvii, 
Dan. ii. Psalm, lxxxix. 

t " Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it." Matt. xvi. 18. "I am with you all days, even until THE 
END OF THE WORLD." Matt, xxviii. 20. " I will pray the Father, 
and he will give you- another Comforter, that he may abide with you FOR 
EVER, even the Spirit of Truth ; he will teach you ALL TRUTH." John 
xiv. 16, &c. "The house of God, which is the church of the living God 
THE PILLAR AND GROUND OF TRUTH." 1 Tim. iii. 14. 

X I BELIEVE THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, or, I BELIEVE 
IN THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. Art. ix. The article is read 
differently by different holy fathers ; but, either way, it means the same thing. 

§ Lactan. De Divin, Inst ; 1. 4, 



m 



LETTER XIII. 



to contending sects, and doctors of the present or of past times ; 
you will need only to hear the churchy which indeed Christ 
commands you to hear, under pain of being treated as a heathen 
or a publican. Matt, xviii. 17. 

I now proceed, dear sir, to- your question, " Why, admitting 
the. necessity of being guided by the church, you and your 
friend may not submit to be guided by the Church of England, 
or any other Protestant church to which you respectively be- 
long ?" — My answer is, Because no such church professes, or, 
consistently with the fundamental Protestant rule of private 
judgment, *can profess, to be a guide in matters of religion. If 
you admit, but for an instant, church authority, then Luther, 
Calvin, and Cranmer, with all the other founders of Protestantism, 
were evidently heretics in rebelling against it. In short, no 
other church but the Catholic can claim to be a religious guide, 
because, evidently, she alone is " the true church of Christ." 
This assertion leads me to the proof of what I asserted above, 
respecting the facility and certainty with which persons of good 
will may solve that most important question. " Which is the 
true church ?" 

Luther,* Calvin,f and the Church of England, % assign as the 
characteristics or marks of the true church of Christ, truth of 
doctrine, and the right administration of the sacraments. But 
to follow this method of finding out the true church, would be to 
throw ourselves back into those endless controversies concern- 
ing the true doctrine and the right discipline, which it is my 
present object to put an end to, by demonstrating, at once, 
" which is the true church." To show the inconsistency of the 
Protestant method, let us suppose that at a levee, some person 
were to inquire of his neighbor, " Which of the personages pre- 
sent is the prince regent ?" and that he was to receive for 
answer, " It is the king's eldest son :" would this answer, how- 
ever true, be of any use to the inquirer ? Evidently not. 
Whereas, if he were told that the prince wore such and such 
clothes and ornaments, and was seated in such or such a place, 
these exterior marks would at once put him in possession of the 
information he was in search of. Thus we Catholics, when we 
are asked, " Which are the marks of the true church V point 
out certain exterior, visible marks, such as plain, unlearned per- 
sons can discover, if they will take ordinary pains for this pur- 
pose, no less than persons of the greatest abilities and literature ; 
at the same time that they are the very marks of this church, 
which, as I said above, natural reason, the Scriptures, the 
creeds, and the fathers, assign and demonstrate to be the true 



De Concil. Eccles. 



t Inst. 1. 41. 



t Art. 19. 



THE TRUE CHURCH, 



97 



marks by which it is to be distinguished. Yes, my dear sir, 
these marks of the true church are so plain in themselves, and 
so evidently point it out, that, as the prophet Isaias has foretold, 
xxxv. 8, fools cannot err in the road to it. They are the flaming 
beacons which for ever shine on tlie mountain at the top of the 
mountains of the Lord's house. Isai. ii. 2. In short, the par- 
ticular motives for credibility which point out the " true church 
of Christ," demonstrate this with no less certitude and evidence, 
than the general motives of credibility demonstrate the " truth 
of the Christian religion." 

The chief marks of the true church, which I shall here as- 
sign, are not only conformable to reason, Scripture, and tradi- 
tion, but (which is a most fortunate circumstance) they are such 
as the Church of England, and most other respectable denomi- 
nations of Protestants, acknowledge and profess to believe in no 
less than Catholics. Yes, dear sir, they are contained in those 
creeds which you recite in your daily prayers, and proclaim in 
your solemn worship. In fact, what do you say of the church 
you believe in, when you repeat the Apostles' Creed ? You 
say, I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
Again, how is this church more particularly described in the 
Nicene Creed, which makes part of your public liturgy ? In this 
you say, I BELIEVE IN ONE CATHOLIC AND APOS- 
TOLIC CHURCH.* Hence it evidently follows that the 
church which you, no less than we, profess to believe in, is 
possessed of these four marks: UNITY, SANCTITY. CATH- 
OLICITY, and APOSTOLICITY. It is agreed upon, then, 
that all we have to do, by way of discovering the true church, 
is to find out which of the rival churches, or communions, is 
peculiarly ONE— HOLY— CATHOLIC— and APOSTOLIC. 
Thrice happy, dear sir, I deem it, that we agree together, by 
the terms of our common creeds, in a matter of such infinite 
importance, for the happy termination of all our controversies, 
as are these qualities or characters of the true church, which- 
ever that may be found to be ! Still, notwithstanding this 
agreement in our creeds, I shall not omit to illustrate these char- 
acters or marks, as I treat them, by arguments from reason, 
Scripture, and the ancient fathers. 

I am, dear sir, &c. 

John Milner. 

* Order of Administration of the Lord's Supper. 
9 



LETTER XIV. 



LETTER XIV. — TO JAMES BROWJN, ESQ. &c, 

UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 

Dear sir- 
Nothing is more clear to natural reason, than that God can 
not be the author of different religions : for being the Eternal 
Truth, he cannot reveal contradictory doctrines ; and being at 
the same time, "the Eternal Wisdom, 5 ' and " the God of peace," 
he cannot establish a "kingdom divided against itself." Hence 
it follows, that the church of Christ must be strictly ONE ; one 
in " doctrine," one in " worship," and one in " government." 
This mark of unity in the true church, which is so clear from 
reason, is still more clear from the following passages of Holy 
Writ. Our Saviour, then, speaking of himself, in the character 
of the good Shepherd, says : " I have other sheep" (the Gentiles) 
" which are not of this fold ; them also I must bring, and they 
shall hear my voice, and there shall be ONE FOLD, and one 
Shepherd." John, x. 16. To the same effect, addressing his 
heavenly Father, previously to his passion, he says : " I pray 
for all that shall believe in me, that THEY MAY BE ONE, as 
thou, Father, art in me and I in thee." John, xvii. 20, 21. In 
like manner St. Paul emphatically inculcates the unity of the 
church, where he writes : " We being many are ONE BODY 
in Christ, and every one members one of another." Rom. xii. 5. 
Again he writes : " There is ONE BODY and one spirit, as 
you are called in one hope of your calling ; one Lord, ONE 
FAITH, and one baptism." Ephes. iv. 4, 5. Conformably 
with this doctrine, respecting the necessary unity of the church, 
this apostle reckons HERESIES among the sins which exclude 
from the kingdom of God, Gal. v. 20 ; and he requires that a 
man who is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, be re- 
jected, Tit. iii. 10. 

The apostolical fathers, St. Polycarp and St. Ignatius, in thei? 
published epistles, hold precisely the same language on this sul>. 
ject with St. Paul ; as does also their disciple, St. Irenseus, who 
writes thus : " No reformation can be so advantageous, as the 
evil of schism is pernicious."* The great light of the third cen- 
tury, St. Cyprian, has left us a whole book on the unity of the 
church, in which, among other similar passages, he writes as 
follows : " There is but one God, and one Christ, and one faith, 
and a people joined in one solid body with the cement of con- 
cord. This unity cannot suffer a division, nor this one body 
bear to be disjointed. — He cannot have God for his Father, who 



* De Hser. I. i. c. 3. 



Protest an* Disunion* 



has not the church for his mother. If any cne could escape the 
deluge out of Noah's ark, he who is cut of the church may also 
escape. —To abandon the church is a crime which blood cannot 
wash away. Such a one may be killed, but he cannot be 
crowned."* In the fourth century, the illustrious St. John 
Chrysostom, writes thus : " We know that salvation belongs to 
the church alone, and that no one can partake of Christ, nor be 
saved out of the Catholic Church &hdfaiih."f The language of 
St. Augustin, in the fifth century, is equally strong on this sub- 
ject, in numerous passages. Among others, the synodical epis- 
tle of the Council of Zerta, in 412, drawn up by this saint, tells 
the Donatist schismatics : " Whoever is separated from this 
Catholic Church, however innocently he may think he lives, for 
this crime alone, that he is separated from the unity of Christ, 
will not have life, but ilie anger of God remains upon him.^% 
To the same effect, and not less emphatical, are the testimonies 
of St. Fulgentius and St. Gregory the Great, in the sixth cen- 
tury, in various passages of their writings. I shall content my- 
self with citing one of them. " Out of this church," says the 
former father, " neither the name of Christian avails, nor does 
baptism save, nor is a clean sacrifice offered, nor is there for- 
giveness of sins, nor is the happiness of eternal life to be found. "§ 
in short, such has been the language of the fathers and the doc- 
tors of the church in all ages, concerning her essential unity, 
and the indispensable obligation of being united to her. Such 
also have been the formal declarations of the church herself, in 
those decrees by which she has condemned and anathematized 
the several heretics a.nd schismatics that have dogmatized in 
succession, whatever has been the quality of their errors, or the 
pretext for their disunion.— I am, dear sir, &e. 

John Milner. 

LETTER XV.-— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c. 

PROTESTANT DISUNION. 

Dear sir — 

In the inquiry I am about to make respecting the church or 
society of Christians, to which this mark of unity belongs, it will 

* Cypr. de Unit. Oxon. p. 109. t Horn. 1. in Paso. 

X Concil. Labbe. torn. ii. p. 1520. 

§ Lib. de Remiss, Peccai. c. 23 — N.B. This doctrine concerning the unity 
of the church, and the necessity of adhering to it, under pain of damnation, 
which appears so rigid to modern Protestants, was almost universally taught 
by their predecessors : as, for example, by Calvin, 1. iv. Instit. 1., and Beza, 
Confess. Fid. c. v. ; by the Huguenots in their catechism ; by the Scotch, in 
their Profession of 1568 ; by the Church of England, Art. 18 ; by the cele» 



100 



be sufficient for my purpose to consider, that of Protestants oft 
one hand, and that of Catholics on the other. To speak proper- 
ly, however, it is an absurdity to talk of the " church or society 
of Protestants ;" for the term PROTESTANT expresses " noth- 
ing positive/' much less any union or association of persons : it 
barely signifies one who protests, or declares, against some other 
person or persons, thing or things : and in the present instance 
it signifies those who protest against the Catholic Church. Hence, 
there may be, and there are, numberless sects of Protestants, 
divided from each other in every thing, except in opposing their 
true mother the Catholic Church. St. Augustin reckons up. 
ninety heresies, which had protested against the church be- 
fore his time, that is, during the first four hundred years of 
her existence ; and ecclesiastical writers have counted about 
the same number, that rose up since that period, down to the 
era of Luther's protestation, which took place early in the six- 
teenth centuiy ; whereas, from the last-mentioned era to the end 
of the same centuiy, Staphylus and Cardinal Hosius enumerated 
two hundred and seventy different sects of Protestants : and, 
alas ! how have Protestant sects, beyond reckoning and descrip- 
tion, multiplied during the last two hundred years ! Thus has 
the observation of the above-cited holy father been verified in 
modern, no less than it was in former ages, where he exclaims : 
"Into how many morsels have these sects been broken, who 
have divided themselves from the unity of the church ?"* You 
are not ignorant that the illustrious Bossuet has written two 
considerable volumes on the Variations of the Protest-ants ; chiefly 
on those of the Lutheran and the Calvinistic progenies. Numer- 
ous other variations, dissensions, and mutual persecutions, even 
to the extremity of death,f which have taken place among them, 
I have had occasion to mention in my former letters and other 

brated Bishop Pearson, &c. The last-named writes thus : " Christ never 
appointed two ways to heaven ; nor did he build a church, to save some, 

and make another institution for other men's salvation. As none were 

saved from the deluge but such as were within the ark of Noah •, so none 
shall ever escape the eternal wrath of God, which belongs not to the church 
of God."— Exposit. of Creed, p. 349. 
* St. Aug. contra Petillian. 

t Luther pronounced the Sacramentarians, namely, the Calvinists, Zuing- 
lians, and those Protestants, in general, who denied the real presence of 
Christ in the sacrament, heretics, and damned souls, for whom it is not law. 
Jul to pray. Epist. ad Arginten. Catech. Parv. Comment, in Gen. His fol- 
lowers persecuted Bucer, Melancthon's nephew, with imprisonment, and put 
Crellius to death, for endeavoring to soften their master's doctrine in ibis 
point. Mosheim by Maclaine, vol. iv. p. 341 — 353. Zuinglius, while he 
deified Hercules, Theseus, &c, condemned the Anabaptists to be drowned, 
pronouncing this sentence on Felix Mans : " Qui iterum mergunt ynergan. 
tur ;" which sentence was accordingly executed at Zurich. Limborch. In» 



PROTESTANT DISUNION. 



101 



works.* I have also quoted the lamentations of Calvin, Dudith, 
and other heads of the Protestants, on the subject of these divi- 
sions. You will recollect, in particular, what the latter writes 
concerning those differences : " Our people are carried away by 
every wind of doctrine. If you know what their belief is to-day, 
you cannot tell what it will be to-morrow. Is there one article 
of^ religion, in which these churches, who are at war with the 
pope, agree together ? If you run over all the articles, from the 
first to the last, you will not find one, which is not held by some 
of them to be an article of faith, and rejected by others as an 
impiety."f 

With these and numberless other historical facts of the same 
nature before his eyes, would it not, dear sir, I appeal to your 
own good sense, be the extremity of folly, for any one to lay the 
least claim to the mark of unity in favor of Protestants, or to 
pretend that they, who are united in nothing but in their hostility 
towards the Catholic Church, can form the one church we profess 
to believe, in the creed ! Perhaps, however, you will say that 
the mark of unity, which is wanting among the endless divi- 
sions of Protestants in general, may be found in the church to 
which you belong, the Established Church of England. — I 
grant, dear sir, that your communion has better pretensions to 
this, and the other marks of the church, than any other Protest- 
ant society has. She is, as our controversial poet sings, " The 
least deform 'd, because reformed the least. You will recol- 
lect the account I have given, in a former letter,§ of the mate- 
rial changes which this church has undergone, at different times, 
since her first formation in the reign of the last Edward, and 
which place her at variance with herself. You will also re- 
member the proofs of Hoadleyism, in other words, of Socinian- 
ism, that damnable and cursed heresy, as this church termed it 
in her last synod,j| which I brought against several of her most 
illustrious bishops, archdeacons, and other dignitaries of modern 
times. These teach, in official charges to the clergy, in conse- 
cration sermons, and in publications addressed to the throne, 

trod. 71. Not content with anathematizing and imprisoning those reformers 
who dissented from his system, John Calvin caused two of them, Servetus 
and Gruet, to be put to death. The Presbyterians of Holland and New Eng- 
land were equally intolerant with respect to other denominations of Protest- 
ants. The latter hanged four Quakers, one of them a woman, on account 
of their religion. In England itself, frequent executions of Anabaptists and 
other Protestants took place, from the reign of Edward VI. till that of Charles 
I., and other severe, though less sanguinary, persecutions of Protestants con~ 
tinued till the time of James II. 

* Lett, to a Prebendary, &c. t Epist. ad Capiton. inter. Epist. Bezae e 
t Dryden's Hind and Panther. § Letter viii. 

$ Constitutions and Canons f A.D. 1640. Sparrow's Collect, p. 355. 

9* 



102 



LETTER XT. 



that the church herself is nothing more than a voluntary ass©, 
ciation of certain people for the benefit of social worship; thai 
they themselves are in no other sense ministers of God, than 
civil officers are ; that Christ has left us no exterior means of 
grace, and that, of course, baptism and the Lord's supper 
(which are declared necessary for salvation in the catechism) 
produce no spiritual effect at all ; in short, that all mysteries, 
and among the rest those of the trinity and incarnation, (for de- 
nying which the prelates of the Church of England have sent 
so many Arians to the stake in the reigns of Edward, Elizabeth, 
and James I.) are mere nonsense.* When I had occasion to 
expose this fatal system, (the professors of which, Crammer and 
Ridley would have sent at once to the stake,) I hoped it was of 
a local nature, and that defending, as I was, in this point, the 
articles and liturgy of the Established Church, as well as my 
own, I should, thus far, be supported by its dignitaries and other 
learned members. I found, however, the contrary to be gene- 
rally the case,f and that the irreligious infection was infinitely 
more extensive than I apprehended. In fact, I found the most 
celebrated professors of divinity in the universities, delivering 
Dr. Balguy's doctrine to the young clergy in their public lec- 
tures, and the most enlightened bishops publishing it in their 
pastorals and other works. Among these the Norrisian pro 
fessor of theology at Cambridge, carries his deference to the 
Archdeacon of Winchester so far, as to tell his scholars, " As 
I distrust my own conclusions more than his, (Dr. Balguy's.) if 
you judge that they are not reconcilable, I must exhort you to 
confide in him rather than me. !, | In fact his idea concerning 
the mysteries of Christianity, particularly the trinity, and our 
redemption by Christ, and indeed concerning most other theolo- 
gical points, perfectly agree with those of Dr. Balguy. He de- 
scribes the difference between the members of the Established 
Church and the Socinians, as consisting in nothing but " a few 
unmeaning words," and asserts, that " they need never be upou 
their guard against each other. "§ Speaking of the custom., as 
he calls it, " in the Scripture, of mentioning Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost together, on the most solemn occasions, of which 

* See extracts from the sermons of Bishop Hoadley > Dr. Balguy, and Dr. 
Sturges, in Letters to a Prebendary, Let. viii. The most perspicuous and 
nervous of these preachers, unquestionably was Dr. Balguy. See his Dis- 
courses and Charges. Lockyer Davis, 1785. 

t That great ornament of the Episcopal bench, Dr. Horsley, Bishop of 
St. Asaph's, does not fall under this censure ; as he protected the preseni 
writer both in and out of Parliament. 

X Lectures in Divinity, delivered in the University of Cambridge, by J, 
Hey, D.D., as Norrisian Professor, in four volumes, 1797. Yoh U. p. 104 

§ Ibid, p. 41. 



PROTESTANT DISUNION. 



103 



baptism is one," — he says, " Did I pretend to understand what 
I say, I might be a Tritheist or an infidel ; but I could not wor- 
ship the one true God, and acknowledge Jesus Christ to be the 
Lord of all."* Another learned professor of divinity, who is 
also a bishop of the Established Church, teaches his clergy, 
" Not to esteem any particular opinion concerning the trinity, 
satisfaction, and original sin, as necessary to salvation. "f Ac- 
cordingly, he equally absolves the Unitarian from impiety, in 
refusing divine honor to our blessed Saviour, and " the wor- 
shipper of Jesus," as he expresses himself, from idolatry, in 
paying it to him, on the score of their common good intention.^. 
This sufficiently shows what the bishop's own belief was, con- 
cerning the adorable Trinity and the Divinity of the second per- 
son of it. I have given, in a former letter, a remarkable pas- 
sage from the above quoted charge, where Bishop Watson, 
speaking of the doctrines of Christianity, says to his assembled 
clergy, " I think it safer to tell you where they are contained, 
than what they are. They are contained in the Bible ; and if, 
in reading that book, your sentiments should be different from 
those of your neighbor, or from those of the church, be persuaded 
that infallibility appertains as little to you, as it does to the 
church." I have elsewhere exposed the complete Socinianism 
of Bishop Hoadley and his scholars,^ among whom we must 
reckon Bishop Shipley in the first rank. 

Another celebrated writer, who was himself a dignitary of 
the Establishment, |{ arguing, as he does most powerfully, against 
the consistency and efficacy of public confessions of faith, 
among Protestants of every denomination, says, that out of a 
hundred ministers of the Establishment, who, every year, sub- 
scribe the articles made " to prevent diversity of opinions," he 
has reason to believe, " that above one-fifth of this number do 
not subscribe or assent to these articles in one uniform sense. "IT 
He also quotes a right reverend author who maintains, that 
" No two thinking men ever agreed exactly in their own opinion, 
even with regard to any one article of it."** He also quotes the 
famous Bishop Burnet, who says, that " The requiring of sub- 
scription to the 39 articles is a great imposition, and that the 
greater part of the clergy subscribe the articles without ever exam- 
ining them, and others do it because they must do it, though they 

* Lectures in DivimtVj delivered in the University of Cambridge, by J. 
Hey, D.D., as Norrisian Professor, in four volumes, 1797. Vol. ii. pp. 250, 
251. t Dr. Watson, Bishop of Landaff's charge, 1795. 

t Collect, of Theol. Tracts, Pref. p. 17. § Letters to a Prebendary. 

|| Dr. Blackburn, Archdeacon of Cleveland, author of the ConfessionaL 

T Confess. 3 Ed. p. 45. ** Dr. Clayton, Bishop of Ciogher. 

ft Confess, p. 83, 



104 



LETTER XV. 



can hardly satisfy their consciences about some things in them."* 
He shows that the advocates for subscription, Doctors Nichols, 
Bennet, Waterland, and Stebbing, all vindicated it on opposite 
grounds ; and he is forced to confess the same thing with respect 
to the enemies of subscription, with whom he himself ranks. 
Dr. Clark pretends there is a salvo in the subscription, namely, 
/ assent to the articles inasmuch as they are agreeable to Scrip- 
ture,^ though the judges of England have declared to the con- 
trary.^: Dr. Sykes alleges that they were either purposely or 
negligently made equivocal.^ Another writer, whom he praises, 
undertakes to explain, how " these articles may be subscribed, 
and consequently believed, by a Sabellian, an orthodox Trini- 
tarian, a Tritheist, and an Arian so called." After this cita- 
tion Dr. Blackburn shrewdly adds, " One would wonder what 
idea this writer had of peace," " when he supposed it might be 
kept by the act of subscription among men of these different 
judgments. "|| If you will look into Overton's True Churchman 
Ascertained, you will meet with additional proofs of the repug- 
nance of many other dignitaries and distinguished churchmen 
to the articles of their own church, as well as of their disagree- 
ment in faith among themselves. Hence you will not wonder 
that a numerous body of them should, some years ago, have pe- 
titioned the legislature to be relieved from the grievance, as they 
termed it, of subscribing to these articles ;1T nor will you be sur- 
prised at hearing of the mutilation of the liturgy by so many 
others, to avoid sanctioning those doctrines of their church, 
which they disbelieve and reject, particularly the Athanasian 
Creed and the Absolution.** 

I might disclose a still wider departure from their original 
confessions of faith, and still more signal dissensions among the 
different dissenters, and particularly among the old stock of 
the Presbyterians and Independents, if this were necessary. 
Most of these, says Dr. Jortin, are now Socinians, though we 
all know they heretofore persecuted that sect with fire and 
sword. The renowned Dr. Priestly not only denied the 
divinity of Christ, but with horrid blasphemy, accused him of 
numerous errors,' weaknesses, and faults :ff and when the au- 
thority of Calvin, in burning Servetus, was objected to him, he 
answered, " Calvin was a great man, but if a little man be 

* Confess, p. 91. t P. 222. t P. 183. § P. 237. || P. 239. 
IT Particularly in 1772. 

** The omission of the Athanasian Creed, in particular, so often took place 
in the public service, that an act of Parliament has just been passed, to en- 
force the repetition of it. But, if the clergymen alluded to really believe 
that Christ is not God, what is the legislature doing in forcing them to wor 
ship him as God ! tt Theolog. Reposit. vol, 4, 



PROTESTANT DISUNION. 



?05 



placed on the shoulders of a giant, he will be enabled to see 
further than the giant himself." The doctrine now preached in 
the fashionable Unitarian chapels of the metropolis, I under- 
stand, greatly resembles that of the late Theophilanthropists of 
France, instituted by an infidel, who was one of the five 
directors. 

The chief question, however, at present is, whether the 
Church of England can lay any claim to the first character or 
mark of the true church, pointed out in our common creed, that 
of UNITY ? On this subject I have to observe, that in addition 
to the dissensions among its members, already mentioned, the) e 
are whole societies, not communicating with the ostensible 
Church of England, who make very strong and plausible pie- 
tensions to be, each of them, the real Church of England. Such 
are the Non-jurors, who maintain the original doctrine of this 
church, contained in the homilies, concerning passive obedience 
and non-resistance, and who adhere to the first ritual of Edward 
VI. :* such are the evangelical preachers and their disciples, 
who insist upon it that pure Calvinism is the creed of the ] Es- 
tablished Church :f finally, such are the Methodists, whom Pro- 
fessor Hey describes as forming the old Church of England. ~% 
And even now, it is notorious that many clergymen preach in 
the churches in the morning, and in the meeting-houses in the 
evening ; whilst their opulent patrons are purchasing as many 
church livings as they can, in order to fill them with incum- 
bents of the same description. Tell me now, dear sir, whether, 
from this view of the state of the Church of England, or from 
any other fair view which can be taken of it, you will venture 
to ascribe to it that first mark of the true church, which you pro- 
fess to belong to her, when in the face of heaven and earth, you 
solemnly declare : I believe in ONE Catholic Church ? Say, is 
there any single mark or principle of real unity in it ! I anti- 
cipate the answers your candor will give to these questions. 

I am, &c. 

John Milneii. 

* To this church belonged Ken, and the other six bishops who were de- 
posed at the revolution, as also Leslie, Collier, Hicks, Bret, and many other 
chief ornaments of the Church of England. 

t It is clear from the articles and homilies, and still more from the perse- 
cution which the asserters of free-will heretofore suffered in this country, that 
the Church of England was Caivinistic till the end of the reign of James I , 
in the course of which that monarch sent episcopal representatives from Eng- 
land and Scotland to the great Protestant Synod of Dort. These, in the 
name of their respective churches, signed that " The faithful who fall into 
atrocious crimes, do not forfeit justification, or incur damnation." 

X Vol. ii. p. 73. 



106 



LETTER XV2. 



LETTER XVL— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c 

CATHOLIC UNITY. 

Dear sir — 

We have now to see whether that first mark of the true 
church, which we confess in our creeds, but which we have 
found to be wanting to the Protestant societies, and even to the 
most ostensible and orderly amongst them, the Established 
Church of England, does or does not appear in that principal 
and primeval stock of Christianity, called the Catholic Church. 
In case this church, spread, as it is, throughout the various na- 
tions of the earth, and subsisting, as it has done, through all 
ages, since that of Christ and his apostles, should have main- 
tained that religious unity, which the modern sects, confined to 
a single people, have been unable to preserve, you will allow 
that it must have been framed by a consummate Wisdom, and 
protected by an Omnipotent Providence. 

Now, sir, I maintain it, as a notorious fact, that this original 
and great church is, and ever has been, strictly ONE in all the 
above-mentioned particulars, and first in her faith and terms of 
communion. The same creeds, namely, the Apostles' Creed, 
the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and the Creed of Pope 
Pius IV., drawn up in conformity with the definitions of the 
Council of Trent, are everywhere recited and professed, to the 
strict letter ; the same articles of faith and morality are taught 
in all our catechisms, the same rule of faith, namely, the re- 
vealed word of God, contained in Scripture and tradition, and 
the same expositor and interpreter of this rule, the Catholic 
Church, speaking by the mouth of her pastors, are admitted and 
proclaimed by all Catholics throughout the four quarters of the 
globe, from Ireland to Chili, and from Canada to India. You 
may convince yourself of this any day at the Royal Exchange, 
by conversing with intelligent Catholic merchants, from the 
several countries in question. You may satisfy yourself re- 
specting it even by interrogating the poor illiterate Irish, and 
other Catholic foreigners, who traverse the country in various 
directions. Ask them their belief as to the fundamental articles 
of Christianity, the unity and trinity of God, the incarnation and 
death of Christ, his divinity, and atonement for sin by his pas- 
sion and death, the necessity of baptism, the nature of the bless- 
ed sacrament ; question them on these and other such points, 
but with kindness, patience, and condescension, particularly 
with respect to their language and delivery, and, I will venture 
to say, you will not find any essential variation in the answers 
of most of them ; and much less such as you will find by pro- 



CATHOLIC UNITY. 



107 



posing the same questions to an equal number of Protestants, 
whether learned or unlearned, of the same denomination. At 
all events, the Catholics, if properly interrogated, will confess 
their belief in one comprehensive article, namely this : I believe 
whatever the holy Catholic Church believes and teaches. 

Protestant divines, at the present day, excuse their dissent 
from the articles which they subscribe and swear to, by reason 
of their alleged antiquity and obsoleteness,* though none of them 
are yet quite two centuries and a half old ;f and they feel no 
difficulty in avowing, that " a tacit reformation," since the first 
pretended reformation, has taken place among them ,\ This 
alone is a confession that their church is not one and the same : 
whereas all Catholics believe as firmly in the doctrinal decisions 
of the Council of Nice, passed fifteen hundred years ago, as they 
do in those of the Council of Trent, confirmed in 1564, and other 
still more recent decisions: because the Catholic Church, like 
its divine Founder, is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, 
Heb. xiii. 8. 

Nor is it in her d&ctrine only, that the Catholic Church is one 
and the same ; she is also uniform in whatever is essential in 
her liturgy. In every part of the world, she offers up the same 
unbloody sacrifice of the holy mass, which is her chief act of 
divine worship : she administers the same seven sacraments, 
provided by infinite wisdom and mercy for the several wants of 
the faithful ; the great festivals of our redemption are kept holy 
on the same days, and the apostolical fast of Lent is every- 
where proclaimed and observed. In short, such is the unity of 
the Catholic Church, that when Catholic priests or laymen, 
landing at one of the neighboring ports, from India, Canada, or 
Brazil, come to my chapel, § I find them capable of joining with 
me in every essential part of the divine service. 

Lastly, as a regular, uniform, ecclesiastical constitution and 
government, and a due subordination of its members, are requi- 
site to constitute a uniform church, and to preserve in it unity 
of doctrine and liturgy; so these are undeniably evident in the 
Catholic Church, and in her alone. She is, in the language of 
St. Cyprian, "the habitation of peace and unity,"|| and in that 
of the inspired text, like an army in battle array.^ Spread, as 
the Catholics are, over the face of the earth, according to my 
former observation, and disunited, as they are, in every other 
respect, they form one uniform body in the order of religion. 

* Dr. Hey's Lectures in Divinity, vol. ii. pp. 49, 50, 51, &c. 
t The 39 articles were drawn in 1562, and confirmed by the queen and 
the bishops in 1571. t Hey, p. 48. 

§ At Winchester, where the writer resided when this letter was written. 
|| " Domicilium pacis et unitaiis." St. Cyp. V Cant. vi. 4. 



108 



LETTER XVI. 



Whether roaming in the plains of Paraguay, or confined in the 
palaces of Pekin, each simple Catholic, in point of ecclesiastical 
economy, is subject to his pastor ; each pastor submits to his 
bishop ; and each bishop acknowledges the supremacy of the 
successor of St. Peter, in matters of faith, morality, and spiritual 
jurisdiction. In every case of error, or insubordination, which, 
from the frailty and malice of the human heart, must, from time 
to time, disturb her, there are found canons and ecclesiastical 
tribunals and judges, to correct and put an end to the evil, 
while similar evils in other religious societies are found to be 
interminable. 

I have said little or nothing of the varieties of Protestants, in 
regard to their liturgies and ecclesiastical governments, because 
these matters being very intricate and obscure, as well as di- 
versified, would lead me too far a-field for my present plan. It 
is sufficient to remark, that the numerous Protestant sects, ex- 
pressly disclaim any union with each other in these points : — 
that a great proportion of them reject every species of liturgy 
and ecclesiastical government whatever ; — that, in the Church 
of England herself, very many of her dignitaries, and other dis- 
tinguished members, express their pointed disapprobation of cer- 
tain parts of her liturgy no iess than of her articles ;* — and 
that none of them appear to stand in awe of any authority, ex- 
cept that of the civil power. Upon a review of the whole mat- 
ter of Protestant disunion and Catholic unity, I am forced to re- 
peat with Tertullian : "It is the character of error to vary ; 
but when a tenet is found to be one and the same amongst a 
great variety of people, it is to be considered, not as an error, 
but as a divine tradition. j* 

I am, dear sir, &c. 

John Milner. 

* Archdeacon Paley very naturally complains, that " the doctrine of the 
articles of the Church of England," which he so pointedly objects to, ** are 
interwoven with much industry into her forms of public worship." I have 
not met with a Protestant bishop, or other eminent divine, from Archbishop 
Tillotson down to the present Bishop of Lincoln, who approves altogether 
of the Athanasian Creed, which, however, is appointed to be said or sung on 
thirteen chief festivals in the year. 

t De Praescrip. contra Haer. — The famous Bishop Jewel, in excuse for the 
acknowledged variations of his own church, objects to Catholics, that there 
are varieties in theirs ; namely, some of the friars are dressed in black, and 
some in white, and some in blue ; that some of them live on meat, and 
some on fish, and some on herbs : they have also disputes in their schools, 
as Dr. Porteus also remarks ; but they both omit to mention, that these dis 
putes are not about articles of faith. 



CLAIM OF EXCLUSIVE SALVATION. 



109 



LETTER XVII.— FROM JAMES BROWN, ESQ. 

OBJECTIONS TO THE CLAIM OF EXCLUSIVE 
SALVATION. 

Reverend sir — 

1 am too much taken up myself with the present subject of 
your letters, willingly tointerrupt the .continuation of them: 
but some of the gentlemen who frequent New Cottage, having 
communicated your three last to a learned dignitary, who is 
upon a visit in our neighborhood, and he having made certain 
remarks upon them, I have been solicited by those gentlemen 
to forward them to you. The terms of our correspondence 
render an apology from me unnecessary, and still more the con- 
viction that I believe you entertain of my being, with sincere 
respect and regard. Rev. sir, &c. 

James Brown. 



Extract of a Letter from the Rev. , Prelendary of , 

to Mr. . 

It is well known to many Roman Catholic gentlemen, with 
whom I have lived in habits of social intercourse, that I was 
always a warm advocate for their emancipation, and, that so 
far from having any objections to their religion, I considered 
their hopes of future bliss as well founded as my own. In re- 
turn, I thought I saw in them a corresponding liberality and 
charity. But these letters which you have sent me from the 
correspondent of your society at Winchester, have quite dis- 
gusted me with their bigotry and uncharitableness. In opposi- 
tion to the Chrysostoms and Augustins, whom he quotes so co- 
piously, for his doctrine of exclusive salvation, I will place a 
modern bishop of my church, no way inferior to them, Dr. 
Watson, who says : " Shall we never be freed from the nar- 
row-minded contentions of bigots, and from the insults of men 
who know not what spirit they are of when they stint the Omni- 
potent in the exercise of his mercy, and bar the doors of heaven 
against every sect but their own ? Shall we never learn to 
think more humbly of ourselves and less despicably of others ; 
to believe that the Father of the universe accommodates not his 
judgments to the wretched wranglings of pedantic theologues ; 
but that every one, who, with an honest intention, and to the 
best of his abilities, seeketh truth, whether he findeth it or not, 
and worketh righteousness, will be accepted by him?"* These, 



* Bishop Watson's Theolog. Tracts, Pref. p. 17. 
10 



110 



LETTER XV III. 



sir, are exactly my sentiments, as they were those of the illus- 
trious Hoadley, in his celebrated sermon, which had the effect 
of stifling most of the remaining bigotry in the Established 
Church.* There is not any prayer which I more frequently or 
fervently repeat, than that of the liberal-minded poet, who him- 
self passed for a Roman Catholic ; particularly the following 
stanza of it : 

" Let not this weak and erring hand 
Presume thy bolts to throw, 
And deal damnation round the land 
On each I judge thy foe."t 

I hope your society will require its popish correspondent, before 
he writes any more letters to it on other subjects, to answer 
what our prelate and his own poet have advanced against the 
bigotry and uncharitableness of excluding Christians, of any 
denomination, from the mercies of God and everlasting happi- 
ness. He may assign whatever marks he pleases of the true 
church, but I, for my part, shall ever consider charity as the 
only sure mark of this, conformably with what Christ says : 
"By this shall all know that ye are my disciples, if ye have 
love one to another." John, xiii. 35. 



LETTER XVIII. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c. 

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 

Dear sir — 

In answer to the objections of the reverend prebendary to 
my letters on the mark of unity in the true church, and the ne- 
cessity of being incorporated in this church, I must observe, in 
the first place, that nothing disgusts a reasoning divine more 
than vague charges of bigotry and intolerance ; inasmuch as 
they have no distinct meaning, and are equally applied to all 
sects and individuals, by others, whose religious opinions are 
more lax than their own. These odious accusations which your 
churchmen bring against Catholics, the dissenters bring against 
you who are equally loaded with them by the Deists, as these 
are, in their turn, by the Atheists and Materialists. Let us, 

* Bishop Hoadley's Sermons on the kingdom of Christ. This made the 
choice of religion a thing indifferent, and subjected the whole business of 
religion to the civil power. Hence sprung the famous Bangorian controver- 
sy, which was on the point of ending in a censure upon Hoadley from the 
Convocation, when the latter was interdicted by ministry, and has never 
since, in the course of a hundred years, been allowed to meet again. 

t Pope's Universal Prayer, 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



Ill 



then, dear sir, in the serious discussions of religion, confine our- 
selves to language of a defined meaning, leaving vague and 
tinsel terms to poets_ and novelists. 

It seems, then, that Bishop Watson, with the Rev. N. N., 
and other fashionable latitudinarians of the day, are indignant 
at the idea of " stinting the Omnipotent in the exercise of his 
mercy, and barring the doors of heaven against any sect," how- 
ever heterodox or impious. Nevertheless, in the very passage 
which I have quoted, they themselves stint this mercy to those 
who " work righteousness," which implies a restraint on men's 
passions. Methinks I now hear some epicure Dives or elegant 
libertine, retorting on these liberal, charitable divines, in their 
own words : "Pedantic Theologu'es, narrow-minded bigots, who 
stint the Omnipotent in the exercise of his mercy, and bar the doors 
of heaven againstme, for following the impulse which he him- 
self has planted in me !" The same language might, with 
equal justice, be put into the mouth of Nero, Judas Iscariot, 
and of the very demons themselves. Thus, in pretending to 
magnify God's mercy, these men would annihilate his justice, 
his sanctity, and his veracity ! 

Our business then is, not to form arbitrary theories concern- 
ing the Divine attributes, but to attend to what God himself has 
revealed concerning them and the exercise of them. What 
words can be more express than those of Christ on this point: 
" He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that 
believeth not shall be damned !" Mark, xvi. 16 : or than those 
of St. Paul : " Without faith it is impossible to please God," 
Heb. xi. 6. Conformably with this doctrine, the same apostle 
classes heresies with murder and adultery ; concerning which he 
says : they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of 
God, Gal. v. 20, 21. Accordingly, he orders that a man who 
is a heretic, shall be rejected, Tit. iii. 10 ; and the apostle of 
charity, St. John, forbids the faithful to receive him info their 
houses ; or even to bid him God-speed, who bringeth not this doc- 
trine of Christ, 2 John, i. 10. This apostle acted up to his rule, 
witl' respect to the treatment of persons out of the church, when 
he hastily withdrew from a public building, in which he met the 
heretic Cerinthus, " lest," as he said, " it should fall down 
upon him."* 

I have given, in a former letter, some of the numberless pas- 
sages, in which the holy fathers speak home to the present 
point; and, as these are far more expressive and emphatical 
than what I myself have said upon it, I presume they have 
chiefly contributed to excite the bile of the reverend prebendary. 



* S. Iren. 1. iii. Euseb. Hist. 1. iii. 



112 



LETTER XVIII. 



However he may slight these venerable authorities, yet as I am 
sure that you, sir, reverence them, I will, on account of their 
peculiar appositeness to the point in question, add two more si- 
milar quotations from the great doctor of the fifth century, St. 
Augustin. He says : "All the assemblies, or rather divisions, 
who call themselves churches of Christ, but which, in fact, 
have separated themselves from the congregation of unity, do 
not belong to the true church. They might indeed belong to 
her, if the Holy Ghost could be divided against himself ; but as 
this is impossible, they do not belong to her."* In like manner, 
addressing himself to certain sectaries of his time, he says : " If 
our communion is the church of Christ, yours is not so : for the 
church of Christ is one, whichsoever she is ; since it is said of 
her : My dove, my undejiled is one ; she is the only one of he? 
mother." Cantic. vi. 9. 

But setting aside Scripture and tradition, let us consider this 
matter, as Bishop Watson and his associates affect to consider it, 
on the side of natural reason alone. These modern philoso- 
phers think it absurd to suppose, that the Creator of the universe 
concerns himself about what we poor mortals do or do not be- 
lieve ; or, as the bishop expresses himself, that he " accommo- 
dates his judgments to the wrangling of pedantic theologues." 
With equal plausibility, certain ancient philosophers have rep- 
resented it as unworthy the Supreme Being to busy himself 
about the actions of such reptiles as we are in his sight ; and 
thus have opened a door to an unrestrained violation of his eter- 
nal and immutable laws! In opposition to both these schools, I 
maintain as the clear dictates of reason ; that, as God is the 
author, so he is necessarily the supreme Lord and Master of all 
beings, with their several powers and attributes, and therefore 
of those noble and distinguishing faculties of the human soul, 
reason and free-will ; — that he cannot divest himself of this su- 
preme dominion, or render any being or any faculty indepen- 
dent of himself or of his high laws, any more than he can cease 
to be God ; — that of course, he does, and must, require our 
reason to believe in his divine revelations, no less than our will 
to submit to his supreme commands ; — that he is just, no less 
than he is merciful ; — and therefore that due atonement must 
be made to him for every act of disobedience to him, whether 
by disbelieving what he has said, or by disobeying what he has 
ordered. I advance a step further, in opposition to the Hoadley 
and Watson school, by asserting, as a self-evident truth : that, 
there being a more deliberate and formal opposition to the Most 
High, in saying, / will not believe what thou hast revealed, than 



* De. Verb. Dom. Serm. ii. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



113 



in saying, I will not 'practise zvhat thou hast commanded ; so, 
ccBteris paribus. WILFUL infidelity and heresy involve greater 
guilt than moral frailty. 

You will observe, dear sir, that in the preceding passage. I 
have marked the word wilful, because Catholic divines and the 
holy fathers, at the same time that they strictly insist on the 
necessity of adhering to the doctrine, and communion of the 
Catholic Church, make an express exception in favor of what is 
termed invincible ignorance ; which occurs when persons out of 
the true church are sincerely and firmly resolved, in spite of 
all worldly allurements on one hand, and of all opposition on 
the other, to enter into it, if they can find it out, and when they 
use their best endeavors for this purpose. This exception in 
favor of the invincibly ignorant is made by the same St. Augus- 
tin, who so strictly insists on the general rule above quoted. 
His words are these : " The apostle has told us, to reject a man 
that is a heretic ; but those who defend a false opinion, without 
pertinacious obstinacy, especially if they have not themselves 
invented it, but have derived it from their parents, and who 
seek the truth, with anxious solicitude, being sincerely disposed 
to renounce their error, as soon as they discover it, such per- 
sons are not to be deemed heretics."* Our great controvertist, 
Bellarmine, asserts that such Christians, " in virtue of the dis- 
position of their hearts, belong to the Catholic Church. "f 

Who the individuals, exteriorly of other communions, but, by 
the sincerity of their dispositions, belonging to the Catholic 
Church, who, and in what numbers they are, it is for the 
Searcher of hearts, our future judge, alone to determine. Far 
be it from me and from every other Catholic " to deal damna- 
tion" on any person in particular! — still thus much, on the 
grounds already stated, I am bound, not only in truth, but also 
in charity, to say and to proclaim, that nothing short of this 
sincere disposition, and the actual use of such means as provi- 
dence respectively affords those who are ignorant of the true 
church for discovering it, can secure their salvation : — to say 
nothing of the Catholic sacraments and other helps for this pur- 
pose, of which such persons are unavoidably deprived. 

I just mentioned the virtue of charity : and I must here add, 
that on no one point are latitudinarians and genuine Catholics 
more at variance than upon this. The former consider them- 
selves charitable in proportion as they pretend to open the gate 
of heaven to a greater number of religionists of various descrip- 
tions ; but, unfortunately, they are not possessed of the keys of 
that gate ; and when they fancy they have opened the gate as 

* Epist. ad Episc. Donat. t Controv. Tom. ii. lib, iii. c. 6, 

10* 



114 



LETTER XVIII. 



wide as possible, it still remains as narrow and the way to it as 
straight as our Saviour describes them to be in the Gospel, 
Matt. vii. 14. Thus they lull men into a fatal indifference 
about the truths of revelation, and a false security of their sal- 
vation. Genuine Catholics, on the other hand, are persuaded 
that, as there is but one God, one faith, and one baptism, Ephes. 
iv. 5, so there is but ^ ONE SHEEPFOLD, namely ONE 
CHURCH. Hence they omit no opportunity of alarming their 
wandering brethren, on the danger they are in, and of bringing 
them into this one fold of the one Shepherd, John, x. 16. To 
form a right judgment in this case, we need but ask : Is it char- 
itable or uncharitable in the physician to warn his patient of 
his danger in eating unwholesome food ? Again, is it charita- 
ble or uncharitable in the watchman, who sees the sword coming, 
to sound the trumpet of alarm ? Ezech. xxxiii. 6. 

But to conclude, the reverend prebendary may continue, with 
most modern Protestants, to assign his latitudinarianism, which 
admits all religions to be right, as a mark of the truth of his 
sect ; thus dividing truth, which is essentially indivisible : yet 
will the Catholic Church continue to maintain, as she ever has 
maintained, that there is only one faith and one true church ; 
and that this her uncompromising firmness, in retaining and 
professing this unity, is the first mark of her being this 
church. — -The subject admits of being illustrated by the well- 
known judgment of the wisest of men. — Two women dwelt to- 
gether, each of whom had an infant son ; but, one of these dying, 
they both contended for possession of the living child, and car- 
ried their cause to the tribunal of Solomon. He, finding them 
equally contentious, ordered the infant they disputed about to 
b*e cut in two, and one half of it to be given to each of them ; 
which order the pretended mother agreed to, exclaiming r " Let 
it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. Then spake the wo- 
man, whose the living child was, unto the king ; for her bowels 
yearned upon her son, and she said : O, my lord, give her the 
living child, and in no wise slay it. Then the king answered 
and said : Give her the living child, and in nowise slay it: 
SHE IS THE MOTHER THEREOF !" 1 Kings, iii. 26, 27. 

I am, dear sir, &c. 

John Milner. 



SANCTITY OF DOCTRINE. 



115 



LETTER XIX. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c. 

ON SANCTITY OF DOCTRINE. 

Dear sir — 

The second mark by which you, as well as I, describe the 
church in which you profess to believe, when you repeat the 
Apostles' Creed, is that of SANCTITY. We, each of us, say ; 
I believe in the HOLY Catholic Church. Reason itself tells us, 
that the God of purity and sanctity could not institute a religion 
destitute of this character, and the inspired apostle assures us 
that " Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it ; that 
he might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing of water, by 
the word ; that he might present it to himself a glorious 
church, not having spot or wrinkle." Ephes. v. 25, 27. — The 
comparison which I am going to institute between the Catholic 
Church and the leading Protestant societies on the article of 
sanctity or holiness, will be made on these four heads : 1st, the 
doctrine of holiness ;— 2dly, the means of holiness ; — Sdly, the 
fruits of holiness ; : — and lastly, the divine testimony of holiness. 

To consider, first, the doctrine of the chief Protestant com- 
munions: this is well known to have been originally grounded 
in the pernicious and impious principles, that God is the author 
and necessitating cause, as well as the everlasting punisher of 
sin ; — that man has no free-will to avoid it ; — -and that justifi- 
cation and salvation are the effects of an enthusiastic persuasion, 
under the name of faith, that a person is actually justified and 
saved, independently of any real belief in the revealed truths, 
independently of hope, charity, repentance for sin, benevolence 
to our fellow-creatures, loyalty to our king and country, or any 
other virtue ; all which were censured by the first reformers as 
they are by the strict Methodists still, under the name of works, 
and by many of them declared to be even hurtful to salvation. 
It is asserted in The Harmony of Confessions, a celebrated work, 
published in the early times of the Reformation, that "all the 
confessions of the Protestant churches teach this primary arti- 
cle (of justification) with a holy consent which seems to 
imply, says Archdeacon Blackburn, " that this was the single 
article in which they all did agree."* Bishop Warburton ex- 
pressly declares, that "Protestantism was built upon it:"f and 
yet, " what impiety can be more execrable," we may justly 
exclaim with Dr. Balguy, " than to make God a tyrant V'\ 
And what lessons can be taught more immoral, than that men 
are not required to repent of their sins to obtain their forgive- 

* Archdeacon Blackburn's Confessional, p. 16. 

t Doctrine of Grace, cited by Overton, p. 31. \ Discourses, p. 59. 



116 



LETTER XIX. 



ness, nor to love either God or man to be sure of their sal- 
vation! 

To begin with the father of the Reformation : Luther teaches 
that " God works the evil in us as well as the good, and that the 
great perfection of faith consists in believing God to be just, 
although, by his own will, he necessarily renders us worthy of 
damnation, so as to seem to take pleasure in the torments of the 
miserable."* Again he says, and repeats it, in his work Be 
Servo Arbitrio, and his other works, that " free-will is an empty 
name ;" adding, " if God foresaw that Judas would be a traitor, 
Judas necessarily became a traitor ; nor was it in his power to 
be otherwise."! "Man's will is like a horse: if God sit upon 
it, it goes as God would have it ; if the devil ride it, it goes as 
the devil would have it. Nor can the will choose its rider, but 
each of them strives which shall get possession of it. "if Con- 
formably to this system of necessity he teaches : " Let this be 
your rule in interpreting the Scriptures — wherever they com- 
mand any good work, do you understand that they forbid it ; 
because you cannot perform it."§ " Unless faith be without 
the least good work, it does not justify ; it is not faith. "|| " See 
how rich a Christian is, since he cannot lose his soul, do what 
he will, unless he refuse to believe ; for no sin can damn him 
but unbelief."1T Luther's favorite disciple and bottle-compan- 
ion, Amsdorf, whom he made Bishop of Nauburgh, wrote a book 
expressly to prove that good works are not only unnecessary, 
but that they are hurtful to salvation, for which doctrine he 
quotes his master's works at large.** Luther himself made so 
great account of this part of his system, which denies free-will, 
and the utility and possibility of good works, that, writing against 
Erasmus upon it, he affirms it to be the hinge on which the 
whole turns; declaring the questions about the pope's suprema- 
cy, purgatory, and indulgences, to be trifles, rather than sub- 
jects of controversy. In a former letter, I quoted a remarkable 
passage from this patriarch of Protestantism, in which he pre- 
tends to prophesy, that this article of his shall subsist for ever 
in spite of all the emperors, popes, kings, and devils, concluding 
thus : " If they attempt to weaken this article, may hell-fire be 
their reward. Let this be taken for an inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost, made to me, Martin Luther." 

* Luth. Opera, ed. Wittemb. tom. ii. fol. 437. + De Serv. Arbit. fol. 460. 

t Ibid. tom. ii. § Ibid. tom. iii. fol. 171. 

|| Ibid. tom. i.fol. 361. IT De Captiv. Babyl. torn. ii. fol. 74. 

** See Brierley's Protest. Apol. 393. See also Mosheim and Machine, 
Eccles. Hist. vol. vi. pp. 324, 328. 

tt See the passage extracted from the work De Setvo Arbitrio, in Letters 
to a Prebendary, letter v 9 



SANCTITY OF BdCTRINfi. 



117 



However, in spite of these prophecies and curses of their 
father, the Lutherans in general, as I have before noticed, 
shocked at the impiety of this his primary principle* soon aban- 
doned it, and even went over to the opposite impiety of semi- 
Pelagianism, which attributes to man the first motion, or cause 
of conversion and sanctification. Still, it will always be true to 
say, that Lutheranism itself originated in the impious doctrine 
described above.* As' to the second branch of the Reformation, 
Calvinism, where it has not sunk into latitudinarianism or So- 
cinianism,f it is still distinguished by this impious system. To 
give a few passages from the works of this second patriarch of 
Protestants : Calvin says, " God requires nothing of us but faith ; 
he asks nothing of us, but that we believe.":): I do not hesitate 
to assert that " the will of God makes all things necessary. "§ 
" It is plainly wrong to seek for any other cause of damnation 
than the hidden councils of God."|| " Men, by the free will of 
God, without any demerit of their own, are predestinated to eter- 
nal death. "IT It is useless to cite the disciples of Calvin, Beza, 
Zanchius, &c, as they all adhere closely to the doctrine of their 
master ; still I will give them the following remarkable passage 
from the works of the renowned Beza: "Faith is peculiar to 
the elect; and consists in an absolute dependence each one has 
on the certainty of his election, which implies an assurance of 
his perseverance. Hence we have it in our power to know 
whether we be predestinated to salvation, not by fancy, but by 
conclusions as certain as if we had ascended into heaven to hear 
it from the mouth of God himself."** And is there a man that, 
having been worked up by such dogmatizing, or by his own 
fancy, to this full assurance of his indefeasible predestination 
and impeccability, can, under any violent temptation to break 
the laws of God or man, be expected to resist it ! 

After all the pains which have been taken of late by Bishop 
Marsh, and other modern divines of the Church of England, to 
clear her from this stain of Calvinism, nothing is more certain 
than that she was, at first, deeply infected with it. The 42 Ar- 
ticles of Edward VI., and the 39 Articles of Elizabeth, are evi- 
dently grounded in that doctrine ;ff which, however, is more 
expressly inculcated in the Lambeth Articles,^ approved of by 

* Bossuet's Variat. 1. viii. pp. 23, 54, &c. Mosheim and Maclaine, vol. 
v. p. 446. t Ibid. p. 458. t Calv. in Joan. vi. Rom. i. Galat. ii. 

§ Insfit. 1. iii. c. 23. || Ibid. IT Ibid. 1. iii. c. 23. 

** Exposit. cited by Bossuet, Variat. 1. xiv. pp. 6, 7. 

tt Panicularly the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 17th, of the 39 Articles. By the 
tenor of the 13th among the 39, it would appear that the patience of Socra- 
tes, the integrity of Aristides, the continence of Scipio, and the patriotism of 
Cato, " had the nature of sin," because they were " works done before the 
grace of Christ." tt Fuller's Church History, >. 230, 



118 



LETTBR XtX. 



the two archbishops, the Bishop of London, &c, in 1595, " whose 
testimony," says the renowned Fuller, " is an infallible evidence 
what was the general and received doctrine of the Church of 
England in that age about the fore-named controversies."* In 
the History of the University of Cambridge, by this author, a 
strict churchman, we have evident proof that no other doctrine 
but that of Calvin was so much as tolerated by the Established 
Church, at the time I have been speaking of. " One W. Barret, 
fellow of Gonville and Caius College, preached ad Clerum for 
his degree of bachelor in divinity, wherein he vented such doc- 
trines, for which he was summoned, six days after, before the 
Consistory of Doctors, and there enjoined the following retracta- 
tion :- — 1st, I said that, No man is so strongly underpropped by the 
certainty of faith., as to be assured of his salvation : but now, I 
protest, before God, that they which are justified by faith, are 
assured of their salvation with the certainty of faith. — 3dly, I said 
that, Certainty concerning the time to come is proud : but now I 
protest that justified faith can never be rooted out of the minds of 
the faithful.^— 6thly, These words escaped me in my sermon: 
I believe against Calvin, Peter Martyr, <|*c., that sin is the true, 
proper, and first cause of reprobation : but now, being better in- 
structed, I say, that the reprobation of the wicked is from everlast- 
ing ; and I am of the same mind concerning election, as the 
Church of England teacheth in the articles of faith. — Last of all, 
I uttered these words rashly against Calvin, a man that hath 
very well deserved of the church of God : that he durst presume 
to lift himself above the High God : by which words I have done 
great injury to that learned and right-godly man. I have also 
uttered many bitter words against Peter Martyr, Theodore Beza, 
&c, being the lights and ornaments of our church, calling them 
by the odious name of Calvinists," &c.f Another proof of the 
former intolerance of the Church of England, with respect to 
the moderate system, which all her present dignitaries hold, is 
the order drawn up by the archbishops and bishops in 1566, for 
government to act upon ; namely, that " All incorrigible free- 
will men, &c, should be sent into some castle in North Wales, 
or at Wallingford, there to live on their own labor, and no one 
to be suffered to resort to them, but their keepers, until they be 
found to repent their errors.":]: A still stronger, as well as 

* Fuller, p. -232. — N. B. On the point in question, Dr. Hey, vol. iv. p. G, 
quotes the well-known speech of the great Lord Chatham in parliament : 
" We have a Calvinistic creed, and an Arminian clergy." 

t Fuller's Hist, of the Univ. of Cambridge, p. 150. — N. B. It will be evi- 
dent to the reader that I have greatly abridged this curious recantation, 
which was too long to be quoted in full. 

X Strype's Annals of Reform, vol. i. p. 214. 



SANCTITY OF DOCTRINE. 



119 



more authentic evidence of the former Calvinism of the English 
church, is furnished by the history and acts of the General 
Calvinistic Synod of Dort, held against Vorstius, the successor 
of Arminius, who had endeavored to modify that impious sys- 
tem. Our James I., who had the principal share in assembling 
this synod, was so indignant at the modification, that, in a letter 
to the States of Holland, he termed Vorstius "the enemy of 
God," and insisted on his being expelled, declaring, at the same 
time, that "it was his own duty, in quality of Defender of the 
Faith, with which title," he said, " God had honored him, to 
extirpate those cursed heresies, and to drive them to hell !"* 
To be brief, he sent Carlton and Davenport, the former being 
Bishop of Llandaff. the latter of Salisbury, with two other dig- 
nitaries of the Church of England, and Balcanqual, on the part 
of the Church of Scotland, to the synod, where they appeared 

amonof the foremost in condemning; the Arminians. and in de- 
es o - 

fining " that God gives true and lively faith to those whom he 
resolves to withdraw from the common damnation, and to them 
alone : and that the true faithful, by atrocious crimes, do not for- 
feit the grace of adoption and the state of justif cation /"f 

It might have been expected that the decrees of this synod 
would have greatly strengthened the system of Calvinism ; 
whereas it is from its termination, which corresponds with the 
concluding part of the reign of James I., that we are to date 
the decline of it, especially in England. :j: Still great numbers 
of its adherents, under the name of Calvinists, professing, not 
without reason, to maintain the original tenets of the Church of 
England, subsist in this country, and their ministers arrogate 
to themselves the title of evangelical preachers. In like man- 
ner, the numerous and diversified societies of Methodists, whether 
Wesleyans or Whitfieldites, Moravians or Revivalists, New 
Itinerants or Jumpers, § are all partisans of the impious and 
immoral system of Calvin. The founder of the first-mentioned 
branch of these sectaries, Wesley, witnessing the follies and 
crimes which flowed from it, tried to reform them by means of 
a labored but groundless distinction. || 

After all, the first and most sacred branch of holy doctrine 
consists in those articles which God has been pleased to reveal 
concerning his own divine nature and operations, namely, the 
articles of the unity and trinity of the Deity, and of the incarna- 
tion, death, and atonement of the consul stantial Son of God. It 
is admitted that these mysteries have been abandoned by the 

* Hist. Abreg. de Gerard Brandt, torn. i. p. 417, torn. ii. p. 2. 

t Bossuet's Variat. vol. ii. pp. 291, 294, 304. 

X Mosheim and Maclaine, vol. v. pp. 369, 389. 

§ See Evans' Sketch of all Religions. || See Postscript, p. 122. 



Letter xtx. 



Protestants of Geneva, Holland, and Germany. With respect 
to Scotland, a well-informed writer says, " It is certain, that 
Scotland, like Geneva, has run from high Calvinism, to almost 
as high Arianism or Sociniahism : the exceptions, especially in 
the cities, are few." It will be gathered from many passages, 
which I have cited in my former letters, how widely extended, 
throughout the Established Church, is that " tacit reform" 
which a learned professor of its theology, signifies to be the 
same thing with Socinianism, A judgment may also be formed 
of the prevalence of this system, by the act of July 21, 1813, 
exempting the professors of it from the penalties to which they 
were before subject. And yet this system, as I have before 
observed, is pronounced by the Church of England, in her last 
named canons, " a damnable and cursed heresy, being a com- 
plication of many former heresies, and contrariant to the arti- 
cles of religion now established in the Church of England."* 
I say nothing of the numerous Protestant victims, who have 
been burnt at the stake in this country, during the reigns of 
Edward VI., Elizabeth, and James I., for the Arian and Socin- 
ian errors in question, except to censure the inconsistency and 
cruelty of the proceeding : all that I have occasion to show is, 
that most Protestants, and among the rest, those of the English 
church, instead of uniformly maintaining at all times the same 
holy doctrine, heretofore abetted an acknowledged impious and 
immoral system, namely, Calvinism, which they have since 
been constrained to reject ; and that they have now compro- 
mised with impieties, which formerly they condemned as 
" damnable heresies," and punished with fire and fagot. 

But it is time to speak of the doctrine of the Catholic Church. 
If this was once holy, namely, in the apostolic age, it is holy 
still ; because the church never changes her doctrine, nor suf- 
fers any persons in her communion to change it, or to question 
any part of it. Hence the adorable mysteries of the trinity, 
the incarnation, &c, taught by Christ and his. apostles, and de- 
fined by the four first general councils, are now as firmly be- 
lieved by every real Catholic, throughout her whole communion, 
as they were when those councils were held. Concerning the 
article of man's justification, so far from holding the impious 
and absurd doctrines imputed to her by her unnatural children, 
(who sought for a pretext to desert her,) she rejects, she con- 
demns, she anathematizes them ! It is then false, and notori- 
ously false, that Catholics believe, or in any age did believe, 
that they could justify themselves by their own proper merits ; 
— or that they can do the least good, in the order of salvation, 



* Constit. and Can. A,D 1640. 



SANCTITY OF DOCTRINE. 



121 



without the grace of God, merited for them by Jesus Christ ; — 
or that we can deserve this grace, by any thing we have the 
power of doing : — or that leave to commit sin, or even the par- 
don of any sin which has been committed, can be purchased of 
any person whomsoever ; — or that the essence of religion and 
our hopes of salvation consist in forms and ceremonies, or in 
other exterior things. — These and other calumnies, or rather 
blasphemies, of a similar nature, however frequently or confi- 
dently repeated in popular sermons and controversial tracts, 
there is reason to think are not really believed by any Protest- 
ant of learning.* In fact, what ground is there for maintaining 
them ? Have they been denned by our councils 1 No : they 
have been condemned by them, and particularly by that of 
Trent. Are they taught in our catechisms, such as the Cate- 
chismus ad Parochus, the General Catechism of Ireland, the 
Doway Catechism ; or in our books of devotion ; for example, 
in those written by an a Kempis, a Sales, a Granada, and a 
Challoner ? No : the contrary doctrine is, in these, and in our 
other books, uniformly maintained. — In a word, the Catholic 
Church teaches, and ever has taught, her children to trust for 
mercy, grace, and salvation, to the merits of Jesus Christ. Nev- 
ertheless, she asserts that we have free-will, and that this, being 
prevented by divine grace, can and must cooperate to our Rusti- 
cation by faith, sorrow for our sins, and other corresponding acts 
of virtue, which God will not fail to bestow upon us, if we do 
not throw obstacles in the way of them. Thus is all honor and 
merit ascribed to the Creator, and every defect and sin attribu- 
ted to the creature. The Catholic Church inculcates moreover 
the indispensable necessity of humility, as the ground-work of 
all virtues, by which, says St. Bernard, " from a thorough 
knowledge of ourselves we become little in our own estimation." 
I mention this Catholic lesson, in particular, because, however 
strongly it is enforced by Christ and his disciples, it seems to 
be entirely overlooked by Protestants ; insomuch that they are 
perpetually boasting in their speeches and writings of the oppo- 
site vice, pride. In like manner, it appears from the above- 
mentioned catechisms and spiritual works, what pains our 
church bestows, in regulating the interior no less than the exte- 

* The Norrisian Professor, Dr. Hey, says, " The Reformed have departed 
so much from the rigor of their doctrine about faith, and the Romanists from 
theirs about good works, that there seems very little difference between 
them." Lect. vol. iii. p. 262. True, most of the reformers, after building 
their religion on faith alone, have now gone into the opposite heresy of Pe- 
lagianism, or at least Semi-pelagiavis'm ; but Catholics hold exactly the 
same tenets regarding good works which they ever held, and which were 
always very different from what Dr. Hey describes them to have been, Vol. 
iii, p. 261, 

11 



122 



LETTER XI*. 



rior of her children, by repressing every thought or idea contrary 
to religion or morality ; of which matter, I perceive little or no 
notice is taken in the catechisms and tracts of Protestants. 
Finally, the Catholic Church insists upon the necessity of being 
"perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect," Matt. v. 48, 
by such an entire subjugation of our passions, and a conformity 
of our will with that of God, that our conversation may be in 
heaven, while we are yet living here on earth. Philip, v. 20. 

I am, &c. 

John Milnee. 



POSTSCRIPT TO LETTER XIX. 

The Life of the late Rev. John Wesley, founder of the Meth- 
odists, which has been written by Dr. Whitehead, Dr. Coke, and 
others of his disciples, shows, in the clearest light, the errors 
and contradictions to which even a sincere and religious mind 
is subject, that is destitute of the clue to revealed truth, the liv- 
ing authority of the Catholic Church ; as also the impiety and 
immorality of Calvinism. At first, that is to say, in the year 
1729, Wesley was a modern Church-of-England-man, distin- 
guished from other students at Oxford by nothing but a more 
strict and methodical form of life. Of course, his doctrine then 
was the prevailing doctrine of that church ; this he preached in 
England, and carried with him to America, whither he sailed 
to convert the Indians. Returning, however, to England in 
1738, he writes as follows : " For many years I have been 
tossed about by various winds of doctrine," the particulars of 
which, and of the different schemes of salvation which he was 
inclined to trust in, he details. Falling, however, at last, into 
the hands of Peter Bohler and his Moravian brethren, who met 
in Fetter-lane, he became a warm proselyte to their system : 
declaring, at the same time, with respect to his past religion, 
that, hitherto he had been a Papist without knowing it. We may 
judge of his ardor by his exclamation when Peter Bohler left 
England : " O what a work hath God begun since his (Border's) 
coming to England ; such a one as shall never come to an end 
till heaven and earth shall pass away." To cement his union 
with this society, and to instruct himself more fully in its mys- 
teries, he made a journey to Hernhuth in Moravia, which is the 
chief seat of the United Brethren. It was whilst he was a Mo- 
ravian, namely, "on the 24th of May, 1738, a quarter of an 
hour before nine in the evening," that John Wesley, by his own 
account, was " saved from the law of sin and death." This all- 
important event happened " at a meeting-house, in Aldersgate- 



SANCTITY OF DOCTRINE . 



123 



Street, while a person was reading Luther's Preface to the Ga° 
latians." Nevertheless, though he had professed such deep ob- 
ligations to the Moravians, he soon found out and declared that 
theirs was not the right way to heaven. In fact, he found them, 
" and nine parts in ten of the Methodists" who adhered to them, 
" swallowed up in the dead sea of stillness, opposing the ordi- 
nances, namely, prayer, reading the Scripture, frequenting the 
sacrament and public worship, selling their Bibles, &c, in order 
to rely more fully * on the blood of the Lamb.'" In short, 
Wesley abandoned the Moravian connection, and set up that 
which is properly his own religion, as it is detailed by Nightin- 
gale in his Portraiture of Methodism. This happened in 1740, 
soon after which he broke off from his rival Whitfield. In fact, 
they maintained quite opposite doctrines on several essential 
points : still the tenet of instantaneous justification, without re- 
pentance, charity, or other good works, and the actual feeling 
and certainty of this and of everlasting happiness, continued to 
be the essential and vital principles of Wesley's system, as they 
are of the Calvinistic sects in general ; till having witnessed 
the horrible impieties and crimes to which it conducted, he, at 
a conference or synod of his preachers, in 1744, declared that 
he and they had " leaned too much to Calvinism and Antino- 
mianism." In answer to the question : " What is Antinomian- 
ism ?" Wesley, in the same conference, answers: "The doc- 
trine which makes void the law through faith. Its main pillars 
are, that Christ abolished the moral law ; — -that, therefore, 
Christians are not obliged to keep it ; — that Christian liberty, is 
liberty from obeying the commands of God ;— -that it is bond- 
age to do a thing because it is commanded, or forbear it because 
it is forbidden ; — that a believer is not obliged to use the ordi- 
nances of God, or to do good works ;- — that a preacher ought 
not to exhort to good works," &c. See here the essential moral- 
ity of religion which Wesley had hitherto followed and preach- 
ed, as drawn by his own pen, and which still continues to be 
preached by the other sects of Methodists !•* We shall hereafter 
see in what manner he changed it. The very mention, how- 
ever, of a change in this ground-work of Methodism, startled all 
the other Methodist connections. Accordingly, the Hon. and 

* The Wesleyan Methodists deny that the Whitfieldites, now called Lady- 
Huntingdon's Connection, the Kilhamites, &c, have a right to the name of 
Methodists; though certainly George Whitfield, when a fellow student with 
John Wesley at Oxford, was, equally with him, termed, a Methodist at their 
setting out. They also deny that the Rev. Mr. Coke is their head, or has any 
jurisdiction over them in England, though they allow him to be a bishop over 
their brethren in America ; having been consecrated, they say, for that de. 
partment by their celebrated father, the Rev. John Wesley. 



124 



Rev. Mr. Shirley, chaplain to Lady Huntingdon, in a circular 
letter, written at her desire, declared against the dreadful heresy 
of Wesley, which, as he expresses himself, "injured the founda- 
tion of Christianity " He, therefore, summoned another confer- 
ence, which severel}?* censured Wesley. On the other hand, 
this patriarch was strongly supported, particularly by Fletcher 
of Madeley, an able writer, whom he had destined to succeed 
him, as the head of his connection. Instead of being offended 
at his master's change, Fletcher says : " I admire the candor 
of an old man of God, who, instead of obstinately maintaining 
an old mistake, comes down like a little child, and acknow- 
ledges it before his preachers, whom it is his interest to secure." 
The same Fletcher published seven volumes of Checks to Anti- 
nomianism, in vindication of Wesley's change in this essential 
point of his religion. In these he brings the most convincing 
proofs and examples of the impiety and immorality to which the 
enthusiasm of Antinomian Calvinism had conducted the Meth- 
odists. He mentions a highwayman, lately executed in his 
neighborhood, who vindicated his crimes upon this principle. 
He mentions other more odious instances of wickedness, which, 
to his knowledge, had flowed from it.* All these, he says, are 
represented by their preachers to be " damning sins in Turks 
and pagans, but only spots in God's children." He adds, 
" There are few of our celebrated pulpits, where more has not 
been said for sin than against it /" He quotes an honorable 
M. P., " once my brother," he says, " but now my opponent," 
who in his published treatise, maintains, <; that murder and 
adultery do not hurt the pleasant children, (the elected,) but 
work even for their good :" adding, " My sins may displease 
God, my person is always acceptable to him. — -Though I should 
out-sin Manasses himself, I should not be less a pleasant child, 
because God always views me in Christ. — Hence, in the midst 
of adulteries, murders, and incest, he can address me with : 
Thou art all fair, my love, ray undefiled ; there is no spot in 
thee. — It is a most pernicious error of the schoolmen to distin- 
guish sins according to the fact, not according to the person. — - 
Though I highly blame those who say, let us sin that grace may 
abound ; yet adultery, incest, and murder, shall, upon the whole, 
make me holier on earth and merrier in heaven V'\ It only re- 
mains to show in what manner Wesley purified his religious 
system, as he thought, from the defilement of Antinomianism. 
To be brief, he invented a two-fold mode of justification, one 
without repentance, the love of God, or other works j the other, 

* See Fletcher, vol. ii. 

+ The Hon. Richard Hill, in his Five Letters. See also Eaton's Honey, 
comb of Salvation* 



MEANS OF SANCTITY. 



125 



in which these works are essential : the former is for those who 
die soon after their pretended experience of saving faith, the 
latter for those who have time and opportunity of performing 
them. Thus, to say no more of the system, a Nero and a 
Robespierre might, according to its doctrine, have been estab- 
lished in the grace of God, and in a right to the realms of in- 
finite purity, without one act of sorrow for their enormities, or 
so much as an act of their belief in God ! 



LETTER XX. — TO JAMES BROWIN', ESQ. &c. 

ON THE MEANS OF SANCTITY. 

Dear sir — 

The efficient cause of justification, or sanctity, according to 
the Council of Trent,* is the mercy of God through the merits 
of Jesus Christ ; still, in the usual economy of his grace, he 
makes use of certain instruments or means, both for conferring 
and increasing it. The principal and most efficacious of these 
are THE SACRAMENTS. Fortunately, the Established 
Church agrees in the main sense with the Catholic and most 
other Christian churches, when she defines a sacrament to be 
" An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, 
given unto us, and ordained by Christ himself, as a means 
whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us 
thereof. "-f But though she agrees with other Protestant com- 
munions in reducing the number of these to two, baptism and the 
Lord's supper, she differs with all others in this particular, 
namely, with the Catholic, the Greek, the Russian, the Arme- 
nian, the Nestorian, the Eutychian, the Coptic, the Ethiopian, 
&c, all of which firmly maintain, and ever have maintained, 
as well since, as before their respective defections from us, the 
whole collection of the seven sacraments.^. This fact alone re- 
futes the airy speculations of Protestants concerning the origin 
of the five sacraments which they reject, and thus demonstrates 
that they are deprived of as many divinely instituted instruments 
or means of sanctity. — As each of these seven channels of grace, 

* Sess. vL cap. 7. 

t Catechism in Com. Prayer. — N. B. The last clause in this definition is 
far too strong t as it seems to imply, that every person who is partaker of the 
outward part of a sacrament, necessarily receives the grace of it, whatever 
may be his dispositions ; an impiety which the Bishop of Lincoln calumni- 
ously attributes to the Catholics. — Elements of Theol. vol. ii. p. 436. 

t This important fact is incontrovertibly proved in the celebrated work, 
La Perpetuile de la Foi, from original documents procured by Louis XIV., 
and preserved in the King's Library at Paris.- 

11* 



126 



LETTER XX. 



though all supplied from the same fountain of Christ's merits, 
supplies each of them a separate grace, adapted to the different 
wants of ihe faithful, and as each of them furnishes matter of 
observation for the present discussion, I shall take a cursory- 
view of them. 

The first sacrament, in point of order and necessity, is bap- 
tism. In fact, no authority can be more express than that of 
the Scripture as to this necessity. " Except a man be born of 
water and of the Spirit," says Christ, " he cannot enter into the 
kingdom of God." John, iii. 5. " Repent," cries St. Peter, 
" and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus, for 
the remission of sins." Acts, ii. 38. " Arise," answered Ana- 
nias to St. Paul, "and be baptized, and wash away thy sins." 
Acts, xxii. 16. This necessity was heretofore acknowledged by 
the Church of England, at least, as appears from her articles, 
and still more clearly from her Liturgy* and the works of her 
eminent divines. f Hence, as baptism is valid, by whomsoever 
it is conferred, the English church may be said to have been 
upon an equal footing with the Catholic Church, as much as 
concerns this instrument or means of holiness. But the case is 
different now, since that tacit reformation which is acknowledged 
to have taken place in her practice. This has nearly swept out 
of her both the belief of original sin and its necessary remedy, 
baptism. " That we are born guilty," the great authority, Dr. 
Balguy, says, " is either unintelligible or impossible." Accord- 
ingly, he teaches that " the rite of baptism is no more than a 
representation of our entrance into the church of Christ." — Else- 
where he says : " The sign (of a sacrament) is declaratory, not 
efficient." % Dr. Hey says, the negligence of the parent, with 
respect to procuring baptism, " may affect the child : to say it 
will affect him, is to run into the error I am condemning. "§ 
Even the Bishop of Lincoln calls it, " An unauthorized principle 
of papists, that no person whatsoever can be saved who has not 
been baptized. "|| Where the doctrine of baptism is so lax, we 
may be sure the practice of it will not be more strict. Accord- 
ingly, we have abundant proofs that, from the frequent and long 
delays in the administration of this sacrament among Protest- 
ants, very many children die without receiving it, and that, 

* Common Prayer. 

t See B. Pearson on the Creed, Art. x. Hooker, Eccl. Polit. b. v. p. 60. 

t Charge vii. pp.298, 300. § Lectures in Divinity, vol. iii. p. 182. 

II Vol. ii. p. 470. The learned prelate can hardly be supposed ignorant 
that many of our martyrs, recorded in our Martyrology and our Breviary, are 
expressly declared not to have been actually baptized ; or that our divines 
unanimously teach, that not only the baptism of blood by martyrdom, but 
also a sincere desire of being baptized, suffices, where the means of baptism 
are wanting* 



MEANS OF SANCTITY. 



127 



from the negligence of their ministers, as to the right matfer and 
the form of words, many more children receive it invalidly. 
Look, on the other hand, at the Catholic Church : you will find 
the same importance still attached to this sacred rite, on the 
part of the people and the clergy, which is observable in the 
Acts of the Apostles and in the writings of the holy fathers ; the 
former being ever impatient to have their children baptized, the 
latter equally solicitous to administer it in due time, and with 
the most scrupulous exactness. Thus, as matters now stand, 
the two churches are not upon a level with respect to this first 
means of sanctification ; the members of the one having a much 
greater moral certainty of the remission of that sin in which we 
were all born, and of their having been heretofore actually re- 
ceived into the church of Christ, than the members of the other. 
It would be too tedious a task to treat of the tenets of other Pro- 
testants, on this and the corresponding matters: let it suffice to 
say, that the famous Synod of Dort, representing all the Calvin- 
istic states of Europe, formally decided that the children of the 
elect are included in the covenant made with their parents, and 
thus are exempt from the necessity of baptism, as likewise of 
faith and morality, being thus insured, themselves and all their 
posterity, till the end of time, of their justification and salvation !* 

Concerning the second channel of grace, or means of sanctity, 
confirmation, there is no question. The Church of England, 
which, among the different Protestant societies, alone, I believe, 
lays claim to any part of this rite, under the title of The cere- 
mony of laying on of hands, expressly teaches, at the same time, 
that it is no sacrament, as not being ordained by God, nor any 
effectual sign of grace \ But the Catholic Church, instructed by 
the solicitude of the apostles, to strengthen the faith of those her 
children who had received it in baptism,:}: and by the lessons of 
Christ himself, concerning the importance of receiving that 
Holy Spirit, which is communicated in this sacrament, § reli- 
giously retains and faithfully administers it to them, for the 
self-same purpose, through all ages. In a word, those who are 
true Christians, by virtue of baptism, are not made perfect 
Christians, except by virtue of the sacrament of confirmation, 
which none of the Protestant societies so much as lays a claim to. 

Of the third sacrament, indeed, the Lord's supper, as they 
call it, the Protestant societies, and particularly the Church of 
England, in her prayer-book, say great things : nevertheless, 
what is it, after all, upon her own showing? — Mere tread and 
wine received in memory of Christ's passion and death, in order 



* Bossuet's Variat. book xiv. p. 46. 
% Acts viii, 14.— xix. 2, 



t Art. xxv. 
§ John, xvi. 



128 



LETTER XX. 



to excite the receiver's faith in him : that is to say, it is a bare 
type or memorial of Christ. Any thing may be instituted to be 
the type or memorial of another thing ; but certainly the Jews, 
in their paschal lamb, had a more lively figure of the death of 
Christ, and so have Christians in each of the four evangelists, 
than eating bread and drinking wine can be. Hence, I infer, 
that the communion of Protestants, according to their belief and 
practice in this country, cannot be more than a feeble excite- 
ment to their devotion, and an inefficient help to their sanctifi- 
cation. — But, if Christ is to be believed upon his own solemn 
declaration, where he says, " Take ye and eat ; this is my 
body : — drink ye all of this ; for this is my blood, " Matt, 
xxvi. 26 ; — " My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink 
indeed, 5 ' John, vi. 56 ; then the holy communion of Catholics 
is, beyond all expression and all conception, not only the most 
powerful stimulative to our faith, our hope, our love, and our 
contrition, but also the most efficacious means of obtaining these 
and all other graces from the Divine bounty. Those Catholics 
who frequent this sacrament with the suitable dispositions, are 
the best judges of the truth of what I here say : nevertheless, 
many Protestants have been converted to the Catholic Church 
from the ardent desire they felt of receiving their Saviour Christ 
himself into their bosoms, instead of a bare memorial of him, 
and from a just conviction of the spiritual benefits they would 
derive from this intimate union with him. 

The four remaining instruments of grace, penance, extreme 
unction, order, and matrimony, Protestants, in general, give up 
to us, no less than confirmation. The Bishop of Lincoln,* Dr. 
Hey,"j" and other controvertists, pretend that it was Peter Lom- 
bard, in the twelfth century, who made sacraments of them. 
True it is, that this industrious theologian collected together the 
different passages of the fathers, and arranged them, with proper 
definitions of each subject, in their present scholastic order: 
this he did not only with respect to the sacraments, but likewise 
to the other branches of divinity, on which account he is called 
the master of the sentences : — but Peter Lombard could as soon 
have introduced Mahometanism into the church, as the belief 
of any one sacrament, which it had not before received as such. 
Besides, supposing him to have deceived the Latin Church into 
this belief, I ask by what means were the schismatical Greek 
churches fascinated into it ? In short, though these holy rites 
had not been indued by Christ with a sacramental grace, yet, 
practised as they are in the Catholic Church, they would still 
be great helps to piety and Christian morality. 



* Elem, vol. ii. p. 414, 



t Lect, vol, iv, p, 199, 



MEANS OF SANCTITY. 



129 



What I have just asserted concerning these five sacraments 
in general, is particularly true with respect to the sacrament 
of penance. For what does this consist of? and what is the 
preparation of it, as set forth by all our councils, catechisms, 
and prayer-books ? There must first be fervent prayer to God 
for his light and strength ; next an impartial examination of the 
conscience, to acquire that most important of all sciences, the 
knowledge of ourselves : then true sorrow for our sins, with a 
firm purpose of amendment, which is the most essential part of 
the sacrament. After this there must be a sincere exposure of 
the state of the interior to a confidential, and at the same time, 
a learned, experienced, and disinterested director. If the latter 
could afford no other benefit to his penitents, yet how inestima- 
ble a one is it, to make known to them many defects and many 
duties, which their self-love had probably overlooked ! as like- 
wise his prescribing to them the proper remedies for their spirit- 
ual maladies ! and his requiring them to make restitution for 
every injury done to each injured neighbor ! But we are well 
assured, that these are far from being the only benefits, which 
the minister of this sacrament confers upon the subject of it : for 
it was not an empty compliment which Christ paid to his apos- 
tles, when, " Breathing on them, he said to them ; Receive ye 
the Holy Ghost : whose sins you shall remit, they are remitted, 
and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." John, xx. 
22, 23. O sweet balm of the wounded spirit ! O sovereign re- 
storative of the soul's life and vigor! best known to those who 
faithfully use thee, and not unattested by those who neglect and 
blaspheme thee !* 

It might appear strange, if we were not accustomed to similar 
inconsistencies', that those who profess to make Scripture, in its 
plain, obvious sense, the sole rule of their faith and practice, 
should deny extreme unction to be a sacrament, the external sign 
of which, anointing the sick, and the spiritual effect of which, 
the forgiveness of sins, are so expressly declared by St. James, 
in his epistle, v. 14. Martin Luther, indeed, who had taken 
offence at this epistle, for its insisting so strongly on good works,f 
rejected the authority of this epistle, alleging that it was " not 
lawful for an apostle to institute a sacrament.:}: But I trust 
that you, dear sir, and your conscientious society, will agree 
with me, that it is more incredible that an apostle of Christ 

* See the form of ordaining priests, in Bishop Sparrow's Collect, p. 158; 
also the form of absolution, in the Visitation of the Sick in the common 
prayer. 

t Luther, in his original Jena edition of his works, calls this epistle "a dry 
and chaffy epistle, unworthy of an apostle." 
t See Luther, in his original Jena edition. 



130 



LETTER XX. 



should be ignorant of what he was authorized by him to say and 
do, than that a profligate German friar should be guilty of blas- 
phemy. Indeed, the Church of England, in the first form of 
her common prayer in Edward's reign, enjoined the unction of 
the sick, as well as prayer for them.* It was evidently well 
worthy the mercy and bounty of our divine Saviour, to institute 
a special sacrament for purifying and strengthening us at the 
time of our greatest need and terror. Owing to the institution 
of this, and the two other sacraments, penance and the real body 
and blood of our Lord, it is a fact, that few, very few Catholics 
die without the assistance of their clergy : which assistance the 
latter are bound to afford, at the expense of ease, fortune, and 
life itself, to the most indigent and abject of their flock, who are 
in danger of death, no less than to the rich and the great : 
while, on the other hand, very few Protestants, in that extrem- 
ity, partake at all of the cold rites of their religion ; though one 
of them, the Lord's supper, is declared, in the catechism, to be 
"necessary for salvation." 

It is equally strange that a clergy, with such high claims and 
important advantages, as those of the Establishment, should deny 
that the orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, are sacrament- 
al, or that the episcopal form of church government, and of 
ordaining the clergy, is required in Scripture. In fact, this is 
telling the legislature and the nation that, if they prefer the less 
expensive ministry of the Presbyterians or the Methodists, there 
is nothing divine or essential in the ministry itself, which will 
be injured by the change ; and that clergymen may be aa 
validly ordained by the town-crier with his bell, as by the me- 
tropolitan's imposition of hands ! Nevertheless, strange as it 
appears, this is the doctrine not only of Hoadley's Socinian 
school, as I have elsewhere demonstrated, -\ but also of those 
modern divines and dignitaries, who are the standard of ortho- 
doxy.^: Thus are the clergy of the English church, as well as 
all other Protestant ministers, by their own confession, destitute 
of all sacramental grace for performing their functions holily 
and beneficially. § But, we know, conformably with the doc- 
trine of St. Paul, in both his epistles to Timothy, 1 Tim. iv. 
14, 2 Tim. i. 6, and the constant doctrine of the Catholic 
Church, as likewise of all other ancient churches, that this 
grace is conferred on those who are truly ordained and in fit 
dispositions to receive it. We know, moreover, that the per- 
suasion which the faithful entertain of the divine character and 

* See Collier's Eccles. Hist. vol. ii., p. 257. t Dr. Balguy, Dr. Hey, &c. 
t The Bishop of Lincoln's Elem. of Theol. vol. ii. pp. 376, 396. 
$ See Letters to a Prebendary, letter viii. 



MEANS OF SANCTITY. 



131 



grace of their clergy, gives a great additional weight to their 
lessons and ministry. In like manner, with respect to matrimo- 
ny, which the same apostle expressly calls a sacrament, Ephes. 
v. 32, the very idea of its sanctity, independently of its peculiar 
grace, is a preparation for entering into that state with religious 
dispositions. 

Next to the sacraments of the Catholic Church, as so many 
helps to the holiness and salvation of her children, I must men- 
tion her public service. We continually hear the advocates of 
the Establishment crying up the beauty and perfection of their 
liturgy ;* but they have not the candor to inform the public that 
it is all, in a manner, borrowed from the Catholic missal and 
ritual. Of this fact any one may satisfy himself, who will 
compare the prayers, lessons and gospels in these Catholic 
books, with those in the Book of Common Prayer. But, though 
our service has been thus purloined, it has by no means been 
preserved entire : on the contrary, we find it, in the latter, evis- 
cerated of its noblest parts; particularly with respect to the 
principal and essential worship of all the ancient churches, the 
holy mass, which, from a true propitiatory sacrifice, as it stands 
in all our missals, is cut down to a mere verbal worship, in 
The order for the morning prayer. Hence our James I. pro- 
nounced of the latter, that it is an ill said mass. The servants 
of God had, by his appointment, SACRIFICE, both under the 
law of nature and the written law ; it would then be extraordi- 
nary, if under the law of grace they were left destitute of this, 
the most sublime and excellent act of religion which man can 
offer to his Creator. But we are not left destitute of it ; on the 
contrary, that prophecy of Malachy is fulfilled, Mai. i. 11 : In 
every place, from the rising to the setting of the sun, sacrifice is 
offered and a pure oblation ; even Christ himself, who is really 
present and mystically offered on our altars in the sacrifice of 
the mass. 

I pass over the solemnity, the order, and the magnificence of 
our public worship and ritual in Catholic countries, which most 
candid Protestants, who have witnessed them, allow to be ex- 
ceedingly impressive, and great helps to devotion, and which, 
certainly, in most particulars, find their parallel in the worship 
and ceremonies of the old law, ordained by God himself. Nev- 
ertheless, it is a gross calumny to assert that the Catholic 
Church does, or ever did, make the essence of religion to con- 
sist in these externals ; and we challenge them to our councils 
and doctrinal books in refutation of the calumny. In like 

* Dr. Rennel calls the church liturgy " the most perfect of human com- 
positions, nnd the sacred legacy of tke fir&t reformers." Disc, p. 237, 



i32 



LETTER XXI, 



manner, I pass over the many private exercises of piety which 
are generally practised in regular Catholic families and by in- 
dividuals ; such as daily meditation and spiritual reading, even- 
ing prayers and examination of the conscience, &c. These, it 
will not be denied, must be helps for attaining sanctity to those 
who are desirous of it. — But I have said more than enough to 
convince your friends, in which of the rival communions the 
means of sanctity are chiefly to be found. 

I am, dear sir, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XXL— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. 

ON THE FRUITS OF SANCTITY. 
Dear sir — 

The fruits of sanctity are the virtues practised by those who 
are possessed of it. Hence the present question is, whether 
these are to be found, for the most part, among the members of 
the ancient Catholic Church, or among the different innovators, 
who undertook to reform it in the 16th and 17th centuries ? In 
considering the subject, the first thing which strikes me is, that 
all the saints, and even those who are recorded as such in the 
calendar of the Church of England, and in whose name their 
churches are dedicated, lived and died strict members of the 
Catholic Church, and zealously attached to. her doctrine and 
discipline.* For example, in this calendar, we meet with a 
Pope Gregory, March 12, the zealous asserter of the papal su- 
premacy, "j" and other Catholic doctrines ; a St. Benedict, March 
21, the patriarch of the western monks and nuns ; a St. Dun- 
stan, May 19, the vindicator of clerical celibacy ; a St. Angus- 
tin, of Canterbury, May 26, the introducer of the whole system 
of Catholicity into England ; and a venerable Bede, May 27, 
the witness of this important fact. It is sufficient to mention 
the names of other Catholic saints, for example, David, Chad, 
Edward, Richard, Elphege, Martin, Swithun, Giles, Lambert, 
Leonard, Hugh, Etheldreda, Remigius, and Edmund ; all of 

* I must except King Charles I. who is rubricated as a martyr on Jan. 30 . 
nevertheless, it is confessed that he was far from possessing either the puri- 
ty of a saint or the constancy of a martyr ; for he actually gave up Episco. 
pacy and other essentials of the established religion, by his last treaty in the 
Isle of Wight. 

t Many Protestant writers pretended that St. Gregory disclaimed the su- 
premacy because he asserted against John of Constantinople that neither he 
nor any other prelate ought to assume the title of Universal Bishop; but 
that he claimed and exercised the supremacy, his own works and the histo- 
ry of Bede incontrovertibly demonstrate. 



FRUITS OF SANCTITY. 



133 



which are inserted in the calendar, and give names to some or 
other churches of the Establishment. Besides these, there are 
very many of our other saints, whom all learned and candid 
Protestants unequivocally admit to have been such, for the ex- 
traordinary purity and sanctity of their lives. Even Luther 
acknowledges St. Anthony, St. Bernard, St. Dominic, St. Fran- 
cis, St. Bonaventure, &c, to have been saints, though avowed 
Catholics, and defenders of the Catholic Church against the 
heretics and schismatics of their times. But, independently of 
this and of every other testimony, it is certain that the super- 
natural virtues, and heroical sanctity of a countless number of 
holy personages of different countries, ranks, professions, and 
sexes, have illustrated the Catholic Church in every age, with 
an effulgence which cannot be disputed or withstood. Your 
friends, I dare say, are not much acquainted with the histories 
of these brightest ornaments of Christianity ; let me then invite 
them to peruse them, not in the legends of obsolete writers, but 
in a work which, for its various learning and luminous criti- 
cism, was commended even by the infidel Gibbon ; I mean The 
Lives of Saints, in twelve octavo volumes, written by the late 
Rev. Alban Butler, President of St. Omer's College. Pro- 
testants are accustomed to paint in the most frightful colors, the 
alleged depravity of the church, when Luther erected his stand- 
ard, in order to justify him and his followers in their defection 
from it. But to form a right judgment in the case, let them 
read the works of the contemporary writers, an a Kempis, a 
Gerson, an Antonius, &c; or let them peruse the lives of St. 
Vincent Ferrer, St. Laurence Justinian, St. Francis Paula, St. 
Philip Neri, St. Cajetan, St. Teresa, St. Francis Xaverius, and 
of those other saints who illuminated the church about the period 
in question. Or let them, from the very accounts of Pro- 
testant historians, compare, as to religion and morality, Arch- 
bishop Cranmer, with his rival, Bishop Fisher ; Protector Sey- 
mour with Chancellor More ; Ann Boleyn with Catharine of 
Arragon ; Martin Luther and Calvin with Francis Xaverius 
and Cardinal Pole ; Beza with St. Francis of Sales ; Queen 
Elizabeth with Mary Queen of Scots; these contrasted charac- 
ters having more or less relation with each other. From such 
a comparison, I have no sort of doubt what the decision of your 
friends will be concerning them in point of their respective 
holiness. 

I have heretofore been called upon to consider the virtues 
and merits of the most distinguished reformers ;* and certainly 
we have a right to expect from persons of this description fin- 

* Reflections on Popery, by Dr. Sturges, LL. D. &c. 
12 



134 



LETTER XXL 



ished models of virtue and piety. But instead of this being the 
case, I have shown that Patriarch Luther was the sport of his 
unbridled passions,* pride, resentment, and lust ; that he was 
turbulent, abusive, and sacrilegious, in the highest degree ; that 
he was the trumpeter of sedition, civil war, rebellion, and deso- 
lation ; and finally, that by his own account, he was the scholar 
of Satan, in the most important article of his pretended Reforma- 
tion. f I have made out nearly as heavy a charge against his 
chief followers, Carlostad, Zuinglius, Ochin, Calvin, Beza, and 
Cranmer. With respect to the last-named, who under Edward 
VI., and his fratricide uncle, the Duke of Somerset, was the 
chief artificer of the Anglican Church, I have shown that, from 
his youthful life in a college, till his death at the stake, he ex- 
hibited such a continued scene of libertinism, perjury, hypocri- 
sy, barbarity, (in burning his fellow Protestants,) profligacy, 
ingratitude, and rebellion, as is, perhaps, not to be matched in 
history. I have proved that all his fellow-laborers and fellow- 
sufferers, were rebels like himself, who would have been put 
to death by Elizabeth, if they had not been executed by Mary. 
I adduced the testimony not only of Erasmus and other Catho- 
lics, but also of the gravest Protestant historians, and of the very 
reformers themselves, in proof that the morals of the people, so 
far from being changed for the better, by embracing the new 
religion, were greatly changed for the worse. ij: The pretended 
Reformation, in foreign countries, as in Germany, the Nether- 
lands, at Geneva, in Switzerland, France, and Scotland, besides 
producing popular insurrections, sackages, demolitions, sacri- 
leges, and persecution beyond description, excited also open re- 
bellions and bloody civil wars.§ In England, where our wri- 

* Letters to a Prebendary, Letter V. 

t Ibid. p. 183, where Satan's conference with Luther, and the arguments 
by which he induced this reformer to abolish the mass, are detailed from 
Luther's works. Tom. vii. p. 228. i Ibid. 

§ The Huguenots in Dauphiny alone, as one of their writers confesses, 
burnt down 900 towns or villages, and murdered 378 priests or religious, in 
the course of one rebellion. The number of churches destroyed by them 
throughout France is computed at 20,000. The History of England's Ref- 
ormation (though this was certainly more orderly than that of other coun- 
tries) has caused the conversion of many English Protestants ; it produced 
this effect on James II. and his first consort, the mother of Queen Mary and 
Queen Anne. The following is the account which the latter has left of this 
change, and which is to be found in Dodd's last volume, and in the Fifty 
Reasons of the Duke of Brunswick : " Seeing much of the devotion of the 
Caiholics, I made it my constant prayer that, if I were not, I might, before I 
died, be in the true religion. I did not doubt but that I was so (ill Novem- 
ber last, when reading a book called the History of the Reformation, by Dr. 
Heylin, which I had heard very much commended, and had been told, if 
ever I had any doubts in my religion, that would settle me : instead of which 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



135 



ters boast of the orderly manner in which the change of reli- 
gion was carried on, it, nevertheless, most unjustly and sacrile- 
giously seized upon, and destroyed, in the reign of Henrv VIII., 
645 monasteries, 90 colleges, and 110 hospitals, besides the- 
bishoprick of Durham ; and, under Edward VI., or rather his 
profligate uncle, 2,374 colleges, chapels, or hospitals, in order 
to make princely fortunes for that uncle and his unprincipled 
comrades, who, like banditti quarrelling over their spoils, soon 
brought each other to the block. Such were the fruits of sanc- 
tity, everywhere produced by this pretended Reformation. 

I am, &c. 

John Milner, 



LETTER XXII.— TO MR. J. TOULMIN. 
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 

Dear sir — 

I have received your letter, animadverting upon mine to our 
common friend Mr. Brown, respecting the fruits of sanctity, as 
they appear in our respective communions. I observe you do 
not contest my general facts or arguments, but resort to objec- 
tions which have been already answered in these, or in my 
other letters now before the public. You assert, as a notorious 
fact, that for several ages prior to the Reformation, the Catho- 
lic religion was sunk into ceremonies and pageantry, and that 
it sanctioned the most atrocious crimes. In refutation of these 
calumnies, I have referred to our councils, to our most accred- 
ited authors of religion and morality, and to the lives and deaths 
of our most renowned saints, during the ages in question. I 
grant, sir, that you hold the same language on this subject with 
other Protestant writers ; but I maintain that none of them make 
good their charges, and that their motive for advancing them, is 
to find a pretext for excusing the irreligion of the pretended 
Reformation. You next extol the alleged sanctity of the Pro- 
testant sufferers, called martyrs, in the unhappy persecution of 
Queen Mary's reign. I have discussed this matter at some 

I found it the description of the horridest sacrileges in the world : and could 
find no cause why we left the church, but for three the most abominable 
ojies : 1st, Henry VIII. renounced the Pope, because he would not give him 
leave to part with his wife and marry another ; 2dly, Edward VI. was a 
child, and governed by his uncle, who made his estate out of the church 
lands ; 3dly, Elizabeth, not being lawful heiress to the crown, had no way 
to keep it but by renouncing a church which would not suffer so unlawful a 
thing. I confess I cannot think the Holy Ghost could ever be in such coun. 
«ila." Declaration of the Duchess of York. 



136 



LETTER XXII. 



length in The Leiters to a Prebendary, and have shown, in op- 
position to John Fox and his copyists, that some of these pre- 
tended martyrs were alive when he wrote the history of their 
death ;* that others of them, and the five bishops in particular, 
so far from being saints, were notoriously deficient in the ordi- 
nary duties of good subjects and honest men ;f that others 
again were notorious assassins, as Gardener, Flower, and 
Rough ; or robbers, as Debenham, King, Marsh, Cauches, Gil- 
bert, Massey, &c. ;% while not a few of them retracted their 
errors, as Bilney, Taylor, Wassalia, and died, to all appear- 
ance, Catholics. To the whole ponderous folio of Fox's false- 
hoods, I have opposed the genuine and edifying Memoirs of Mis- 
sionary Priests and other Catholics, who suffered death for their 
Religion, during the reigns of Elizabeth and the Stuarts. Fi 
nally, you reproach me with the scandalous lives of some of 
our popes, during the middle ages, and of very many Catholics 
of different descriptions, throughout the church at the present 
day ; and you refer me to the edifying lives of a great number 
of Protestants, now living in this country. 

My answer, dear sir, to your concluding objections, is briefly 
this, that I, as well as Baronius, Bellarmin, and other Catholic 
writers, have unequivocally admitted, that some few of our pon 
tiffs have disgraced themselves by their crimes, and given just 
cause of scandal to Christendom ;§ but I have remarked that 
the credit of our cause is not affected by the personal conduct 
of particular pastors, who succeeded one another in a regular 
way, in the same manner, as the credit of yours is by the beha 
vior of your founders, who professed to have received an extra 
ordinary commission from God to reform religion. |j I acknow- 
ledge, with the same unreservedness, that the lives of very 
many Catholics, in this and other parts of the church, are a dis- 
grace to that holy Catholic Church which they profess to believe 
in. Unhappy members of the true religion by lohom the name 
of God (and of his holy church) is blasphemed among the na- 
tions ! Rom. ii. 24. Unhappy Catholics, who " live enemies of 
the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, who mind only 
earthly things !" Philip, iii. 18. But, " It must needs be that 
scandals should come : nevertheless, wo to that man by whom 
the scandal cometh !" Matt, xviii. 7. In short, I bear a willing 
testimony to the public and private worth of very many of my 
Protestant countrymen of different religions, as citizens, as sub- 
jects, as friends, as children, as parents, as moral men, and as 
Christians, in the general sense of the word ; still I must say 

* See Letter IV. on Persecution, t See Letter V. on the Reformation 
X Letter IV. §. See Letter II. on Supremacy. • || Ibid. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



137 



that I find the best of them far short of the holiness which is 
prescribed in the Gospel, and is exemplified in the lives of those 
saints whom I have mentioned. On this subject I will quote an 
authority, which, I think, you will not object to. Dr. Hey says, 
" In England, I could almost say, we are too little acquainted 
with contemplative religion. The monk, painted by Sterne, 
may give us a more favorable idea of it, than our prejudices 
generally suggest. I once travelled with a Recolet, and con- 
versed with a Minim at his convent ; and they both had that 
kind of character which Sterne gives to his monk : that refine- 
ment of body and mind, that pure glow of meliorated passion, 
that polished piety and humanity," &c* In a former letter to 
your society, I have stated that sincere humility, by which, 
from a thorough knowledge of our sins and misery, we become 
little in our own eyes, and try to avoid, rather than to gain the 
praise and notice of others, is the very groundwork of all other 
Christian virtues. It has been objected to Protestants, ever 
since the defection of their arrogant patriarch, Luther, that they 
have said little, and have appeared to understand less of this 
essential virtue. I might say the same with respect to the ne- 
cessity of an entire subjugation of our other congenial passions, 
avarice, lust, anger, intemperance, envy, and sloth, as I have 
said of pride and vain-glory ; but I pass over these to say a few 
words of certain maxims expressly contained in Scripture. It 
cannot then be denied that our Saviour said to the rich young 
man, " If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all thou hast and give to 
the poor, and thou shalt have treasures in heaven;" nor that he 
declared on another occasion, " There are eunuchs who have 
made themselves eunuchs (continent) for the kingdom of hea- 
ven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." 
Matt. xix. 12. Now it is notorious that this life of voluntary 
poverty and perpetual chastity continues to be vowed and ob- 
served by great numbers of both sexes in the Catholic Church ; 
while it is nothing more than a subject of ridicule to the best 
of Protestants. Again, "that we ought to fast, is a truth too 
manifest to stand in need of any proof :" I here use the words 
of the Church of England in her Homily iv. p. 11 ; conforma- 
bly with which doctrine your church enjoins in her Common 
Prayer Book, the same days of fasting and abstinence which the 
Catholic Church does ; namely, the forty days of Lent, the 
Ember-days, all the Fridays in the year, &c. : nevertheless, 
where is the Protestant to be*found who will submit to the mor- 
tification of fasting, even to obey his own church ? I may add, 
that Christ enjoins constant prayer, Luke, xviii. 1 ; conformably 



* Lectures in Divinity, vol, L p, 364, 



138 



LETTER XXIII. 



with which injunction, the Catholic Church requires her clergy 
at least, from the sub-deacon up to the pope, daily to say the 
seven Canonical Hours, consisting chiefly of Scriptural psalms 
and lessons ; which take up in the recital near an hour and a 
half, in addition to their other devotions. Now, what pretext 
had the Protestant clergy, whose pastoral duties are so much 
lighter than ours, to lay aside these inspired prayers, except in- 
devotion ? Luther himself said his office for some time after 
his apostacy. — But to conclude : as it is of so much importance 
to ascertain which is the lioly church mentioned in your creed, 
and as you can follow no better rule for this purpose, than to 
judge of the tree hy its fruits ; so let me advise you and your 
friends, to make use of every means in your power, to compare 
regular families, places of education, and especially ecclesias- 
tical establishments of the different communions, with each 
other, as to morality and piety, and to decide for yourselves ac- 
cording to what you may observe in them. — I am, &c. 

John Milner. 

LETTER XXIII. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. 

ON DIVINE ATTESTATION OF SANCTITY. 
Dear sir- 
Having demonstrated the distinctive holiness of the Catholic 
Church, in her doctrine, her practices, and her fru&s of sanctity, 
I am prepared to show that God himself has borne testimony to 
her holiness, and to those very doctrines and practices which 
Protestants object to as unholy and superstitious, by the many 
incontestable miracles he has wrought in her and in their favor, 
from the age of the apostles down to the present age. 

The learned Protestant advocates of revelation, such as Gro- 
tius, Abbadie, Paley, Watson, &c, in defending this common 
cause against infidels, all agree in the sentiment of the last 
named, that " Miracles are the criterion of truth." Accord- 
ingly they observe, that both Moses, Exod. iv. xiv, Numb. xvi. 
29, and Jesus Christ, John, x. 37,. 38, — xiv. 12, — xv. 24, con- 
stantly appealed to the prodigies they wrought, in attestation of 
their divine mission and doctrine. Indeed the whole history of 
God's people, from the beginning of the world down to the time 
of our blessed Saviour, was nearly a continued series of mira- 
cles.* The latter, so far from confining the power of working 

* To say nothing of the Urim and Thu mmim, the Water of Jealousy, and 
the superabundant harvest of the sabbatical year, it is incontestable, from 
the Gospel of St. John, v. 2, that the probatical pond was endowed by an 
angel with a miraculous power of healing every kind of disease, in the tiaae 
of Christ, 



ATTESTATION OF SANCTITY. 



139 



them to his own person or time, expressly promised the same, 
and even a greater power of this nature, to his disciples, Mark, 
xvi. 17, John, xiv. 12. For both the reasons here mentioned, 
namely, that the Almighty was pleased to illustrate the society 
of his chosen servants, both under the law of nature and the 
written law, with frequent miracles, and that Christ promised a 
continuance of them to his disciples under the new law, we are 
led to expect that the true church should be distinguished by 
miracles, wrought in her, and in proof of her divine origin. 
Accordingly, the fathers and doctors of the Catholic Church, 
amongst other proofs in her favor, have constantly appealed to 
the miracles by which she is illustrated, and reproached their 
contemporary heretics and schismatics with the want of them. 
Thus St. Irenseus, disciple of St. Polycarp, who himself was a 
disciple of St. John the evangelist, reproaches the heretics, 
against whom he writes, that they could not give sight to the 
blind, hearing to the deaf, cast out devils, or raise the dead to 
life ; as he testifies was frequently done in the true church.* 
Thus also his contemporary, Tertullian, speaking of the here- 
tics, says, " I wish to see the miracles they have wrought, "f 
St. Pacian, in the fourth century, writing against the schismatic 
Novatus, scornfully asks, " Has he the gift of tongues or pro- 
phecy ? Has he restored the dead to life ?"J The great St. 
Augustin, in various passages of his works, refers to the mira- 
cles wrought in the Catholic Church, in evidence of her ve- 
racity^ St. Nicetas, Bishop of Treves, in the sixth century, 
in order to convert her husband, Albion, king of the Lombards, 
from Arianism, advises Queen Clodosind to induce him to send 
confidential messengers, to witness the miracles wrought at the 
tombs of St. Martin, St. Germanus, or St. Hilary, in giving 
sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, &c, adding, " Are such 
things done in tne cnurches of the Arians?"|| About the same 
time Levigild, king of the Goths in Spain, an Arian, who was 
converted, or nearly so, by his Catholic son, St. Hermengild, 
reproached his Arian bishops that no miracles were wrought 
among them, as was the case, he said, among the Catholics. IT 
The seventh century was illustrated by the miracles of our 
apostle, St. Augustin of Canterbury, wrought in confirmation of 

* Lib. ii. contra Haer. c. 31. t Lib. de Prsescr. 

X Ep. ii. ad Symphor. 

§ " Dubitamus nos ejus Ecclesiae condere gremio, quae usque ad confes. 
sionem generis humani ab apostolica sede, per suecessionem Epi9eoporum 
(frustra hsereticis circumlatrantibus, et partim plebis ipsius judicio, partim 
conciliorum gravitate, partim etiam miraculorum majesiate damnatis) cuL 
men auctoritatis obtinuit ?" — De Utilit. Cred. c. iv. 

I! Labbe's Concil. torn. v. p. 835. V Greg. Turon. 1. ix, c, 15, 



140 



LETTER XXIII. 



the doctrine which he taught, as was recorded on his tomb :* 
and this doctrine, by the confession of learned Protestants, was 
purely the Roman Catholic."]" In the eleventh century, we hear a 
celebrated doctor, speaking of the proofs of the Catholic religion, 
exclaim thus, " O Lord, if what we believe is an error, thou 
art the author of it, since it is confirmed amongst us by those 
signs and prodigies which could not be wrought but by thee.":); 
In short, St. Bernard, St. Dominic, St. Xaverius, &c, all ap- 
pealed to the miracles which God wrought by their hands, in 
proof of the Catholic doctrine. I need not mention the contro- 
versial works of Bellarmin and other modern schoolmen : nev- 
ertheless, I cannot refrain from observing that even Luther, 
when the Anabaptists, adopting his own principles, had proceeded 
to excesses of doctrine and practice" which he disapproved of, 
required them to prove their authority for their innovations by 
the performance of miracles. § You will naturally ask, dear sir, 
how Luther himself got rid of the argument implied by this re- 
quisition, which, it is evident, bore as strongly against him, as 
against the Anabaptists ? — On one occasion, he answered thus, 
" I have made an agreement with the Lord, not to send me any 
visions, or dreams, or angels," &c.|| On another occasion, he 
boasts, of his visions as follows : " I also was in spirit," and 
" if I must glory in what belongs to me, I have seen more 
spirits than they (the Swinkfeldians, who denied the real pres- 
ence) will see in a whole year."1T 

Such has been the doctrine of the fathers and Catholic writers 
concerning miracles in general, as divine attestations in favor 
of that church in which God is pleased to work them. I will now 
mention, or refer to a few particular miraculous events of un- 
questionable evidence, which have illustrated this church, dur- 
ing the eighteen centuries of her existence. 

No Christian questions the miracles and prophecies of the 
apostles or their converts, 1 Cor. xii. 10, Galat. iii. 5 ; and if 
they do not, why should any Christian question the vision and 
prophecy of the apostolic Saint Polycarp, the angel of the church 
of Smyrna, Rev. ii. 8, concerning the manner of his future mar- 
tyrdom, namely, by fire ?** or the testimony of his episcopal cor- 

* " Hie requiescit D. Augustinus, &c. qui operatione miraculorum suf- 
fultus, Etlelberthum Regem ac gentem illius ab idolorum cultu ad fidem 
Christi covertit." — Bed. Eccles. Hist. 1. ii. c. 3. See, in particular, the ac- 
count of this saint's restoring sight to a blind man in confirmation of his 
doctrine. Ibid. c. 2. 

t The Centuriators of Magdeburg, Ssec. 6. Bale. In Act. Rom. Pont 
Humphrey's Jesuit, &c. t Ric. a S. Vict, de Trinit. 1. i. 

§ Sleidan. Comment de Stat. Rel. 

|| Manlius in loc. commun. See Brierly's Apology, p. 448. 

V Luth. ad Senat, Civil. Germ. ** Genuine Acts by Ruinart. 



ATTESTATION OF SANCTITY. 



141 



respondent, who was likewise a disciple of the apostles, St. Ig* 
natius, Bishop of Antioch, who testifies that the wild beasts let 
loose upon the martyrs, were frequently restrained by a divine 
power from hurting them 1 In consequence of this, he prayed 
that it might not be the case with him.* St. Irenseus, Bishop 
of Lyons, was the disciple of St. Polycarp, and, like him, an il- 
lustrious martyr. Shall we then call in question his testimony, 
when he declares, as I have noticed above, that miracles, even 
to the revival of the dead, frequently took place in the Catholic 
Church, but never among the heretics ?f Or shall we disbe- 
lieve the testimonies of the learned Origen, in the next century, 
who says that it was usual with the Christians of his time to 
drive *away devils, heal the sick, and foretell things to come ? 
adding : " God is my witness, I would not recommend the reli- 
gion of Jesus by fictitious stories, but only by clear and certain 
facts. "J One of the scholars of Origen was St. Gregory, Bishop 
of Neocesarea, surnamed Thaumaturgus, or Wonderworker, on 
account of the numerous and astonishing miracles which God 
wrought by his means. Many of these, even to the stopping the 
course of a flood, and the moving of a mountain, are recorded 
by the learned fathers, who, soon after, wrote his life.§ St. 
Cyprian, the great ornament of the third century, recounts sev- 
eral miracles which took place in it ; some of which prove the 
blessed eucharist to be a sacrifice, and the lawfulness of receiv- 
ing it under one kind. In the middle of the fourth century hap- 
pened that wonderful miracle, when the Emperor Julian the 
Apostate, attempting to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem, in order 
to disprove the prophecy of Daniel concerning it, Dan. ix. 27, 
tempests, whirlwinds, earthquakes, and fiery eruptions convulsed 
the scene of the undertaking, maiming or blasting the thousands 
of Jews and other laborers employed in the work, and, in short, 
rendering the completion of it utterly impossible. In the mean 
time a luminous cross, surrounded With a circle of rays, appear- 
ed in the heavens, and numerous crosses were impressed on the 
bodies and garments of the persons present. These prodigies 
are so strongly attested by almost all the authors of the age, 
Arians, and pagans, no less than Catholics, j| that no one but a 
downright skeptic can call them in question. They have ac- 
cordingly been acknowledged by the most learned Protestants. IT 

* Ep. ad. Roman, t Contra Haer. 1. ii. c. 31. t Contra Cels. 1. i. 
§ Greg. Nyss. Euseb. 1. vi. St. Basil, St. Jerom. 

|| Besides the testimony of the fathers, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Chry. 
sost.>m, Sr.. Ambrose, and of the historians Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, 
fee., these events are also acknowledged by Philostorgius the Arian, Ammi- 
aiiiis Marcellinus the Pagan, &e. 

IT Bishop Warbunon published a book called Julian, in proof of these 
miracles. They are also acknowledged by Bishop Halifax, Di3C. > 23. 



tETTEft XXlIl. 



Another miracle, which may vie with the above-mentioned, for 
the number and quality of its witnesses, took place in the fol- 
lowing century, at Typassus in Africa; where a whole congre- 
gation of Catholics being assembled to perform their devotions, 
contrary to the orders of the Arian tyrant, Hunneric, their right 
hands were chopped off, and their tongues cut out to the roots, 
by his command : nevertheless, they continued to speak as per. 
fectly as they did before this barbarous act.* I pass over num. 
berless miracles recorded by SS. Basil, Athanasius, Jerom, 
Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustin, and the other illustrious fa- 
thers and church-historians, who adorned the fourth, fifth, and 
sixth centuries of Christianity ; and shall barely mention one 
miracle, which both the last-mentioned holy bishops relate, as 
having been themselves actual witnesses of it, that of restoring 
sight to a blind man, by the application to his eyes of a cloth 
which had touched the relics of SS. Gervasius and Protasius.f 
The latter saint, one of the most enlightened men that ever 
handled a pen, gives an account, in the work to which I have 
just referred.^: of a great number of miracles wrought in Africa, 
during his episcopacy, by the relics of St. Stephen ; and among 
the rest, of seventy wrought in his own diocese of Hippo, and 
some of them in his own presence, in the course of two years. 
Among these was the restoration of three dead bodies to life. 

From this notice of the great St. Augustin of Hippo, in the 
fifth century, I proceed to observe, concerning St. Augustin of 
Canterbury, at the end of the sixth, that the miracles wrought 
by him, were- not only recorded on his tomb, and in the history 
of the venerable Bede, and other writers, but that an account 
of them was transmitted, at the time they took place, by St. 
Gregory to Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria, in an epistle, 
still extant, in which this pope compares them with those per- 
formed by the apostles. § The latter saint wrote likewise an 
epistle to St. Augustin himself, which is still extant in his works, 
and in Bede's history, cautioning him against being elated with 
vain-glory, on the occasion of these miracles, and reminding 
him that God had bestowed the power of working them, not on 
his own account, but for the conversion of the English nation. || 

* The vouchers of this miracle are Victor Vitensis, Hist. Persec. Vandal, 
I. ii. ; the Emperor Justinian, who declares that he had seen some of the 
sufferers, Codex. Just. Tit. 27 ; the Greek historian Procupius, who says he 
had conversed with them, L. i. de Bell. Vand. c. 8 ; ^Kneas of Geza, a pla- 
tonic philosopher, who, having examined their mouths, protested that he was 
not so much surprised at their being able to talk as at their being able to 
live ; De Iinmort. Anim. Victor, Turon, Isid. Hispal. Greg. Magn. &,c. The 
miracle is admitted by Abbadie, Dudweil, Mosheim, and other learned Pro- 
testants, t Aug. De Civit. Dei, 1. xii. p. 8. t Ibid. 1. xii. 

§ Epist. S. Greg* h vii. U Ibid, et Hist. Bede, 1. i. c. 31. 



ATTESTATION OF SANCTITY. 143 

On the supposition that our apostle had wrought no miracles^ 
what farces must these epistles have exhibited among the first 
characters of the Christian world ! 

Among the numberless and well-attested miracles which the 
histories of the middle ages present to our view, I stop at those 
of the illustrious abbot St. Bernard, in the twelfth century, to 
whose sanctity the most eminent Protestant writers have borne 
high testimony.* This saint, in the life of his friend, St. Mala- 
chy of Armagh, amongst other miracles, mentions the cure of 
the withered hand of a youth, by the application to it of the dead 
hand of his friend. f But this, and all the miracles which St. 
Bernard mentions of other saints, totally disappear, when com- 
pared with those wrought by himself ; which, for their splendor 
and publicity, never were exceeded. All France, Germany, 
Switzerland, and Italy bore testimony to them ; and prelates, 
princes, and the emperor himself, were often the spectators of 
them. In a journey which the saint made into Germany, he 
was followed by Philip, Archdeacon of Liege, who was sent by 
Sampson, Archbishop of Rheims, to observe his actions.^: This 
writer accordingly gives an account of a vast number of instan- 
taneous cures, which the holy abbot performed on the lame, the 
blind, the paralytic, and other diseased persons, with all the 
circumstances of them. Speaking of those wrought at Cologne, 
he says : " They were not performed in a corner ; but the whole 
city was witness to them. If any one doubts, or is curious, he may 
easily satisfy himself on the spot, especially as some of them 
were wrought on persons of no inconsiderable rank and reputa- 
tion. "§ A great number of these miracles were performed in 
express confirmation of the Catholic doctrine which he defended. 
Thus, preaching at Sarlet against the impious and impure Hen- 
ricians, a species of Albigenses, he took some loaves of bread 
and blessed them : after which he said : " By this you shall 
know that I preach to you the true doctrine ; and the heretics a 
false doctrine : all your sick, who eat of this bread, shall recover 
their health;" which prediction was confirmed by the event. j[ 
St. Bernard himself, in the most celebrated of his works,TT ad- 
dressed to Pope Eugenius III., refers to the miracles, which God 
enabled him to work, by way of justifying himself for having 
preached up the second crusade ;** and, in his letter to the peo- 

* Luther, Calvin, Bucer, OEcolompadius, Jewel, Whi taker, Mosheim, &c 
t Vita Matach. inter Oper. Bern. 

X St. Bernard's Life was written by his three contemporaries, William, ab- 
bot of Thierry ; Arnold, abbot of Bonevaux ; and Geoffry, the saint's secre- 
tary, and by other early writers : his own eloquent epistles, and other works, 
furnish many particulars. § Published by Mabillon. 

Geof. in Vit. Bern* T De Consideratione* ** Ibid.- 1, ii. 



■ 144 



LETTER XXttt. 



pie of Thoulouse, he mentions his having detected the heretics 
among them, not only by words, but also by miracles.* 

The miracles of St. Francis Xa.verius, the Apostle of India, 
who was contemporary with Luther, in number, splendor, and 
publicity, may vie with St. Bernard's. They consisted in fore- 
telling future events, speaking unknown languages, calming 
tempests at sea, curing various maladies, and raising the dead 
to life ; and, though they took place in remote countries, yet 
they were verified in the same, soon after the saint's death, by 
virtue of a commission from John III., King of Portugal, and 
were generally acknowledged, not only by Europeans of differ- 
ent religions in the Indies,f but also by the native Mahometans 
and pagans. :{: At the same time with this saint, lived the holy, 
contemplative St. Philip Neri, in proof of whose miracles three 
hundred witnesses, some of them persons of high rank, were 
juridically examined. § The following century was illustrated 
by the attested miracles of St. Francis of Sales, || even to the 
resurrection of the dead ; as it was also by those of St. John 
Francis Regis ; concerning which, twenty-two bishops of Lan- 
guedoc wrote thus to Pope Clement XI. : " We are witnesses 
that before the tomb of F. J. F. Regis, the blind see, the lame 
walk, the deaf hear, the dumb speak. "IT 

You will understand, dear sir, that I mention but a few of 
the saints, and with respect to these, but a few of their miracles ; 
as my object is to prove the single fact that God has illustrated 
the Catholic Church with undeniable miracles, chiefly by means 
of his saints, in the different ages of her existence. What now 
will you, dear sir, and your friends, say to the evidence here 
adduced ? Will you say that all the holy fathers, up to the 
apostolic age, and that all the ecclesiastical writers down to the 
Reformation ; and, since that period, that all the Catholic au- 
thors, prelates, and officials, have been in a league to deceive 
mankind ? In short, that they are all liars and impostors alike ? 
Such, in fact, is the absurd and horrible system, which, to get 
rid of the DIVINE ATTESTATION, in favor of the Catholic 
Church, the celebrated Dr. Conyers Middleton has declared for ; 
as have most Protestant writers who have handled the subject, 
since the publication of bis Free Inquiry. This system, how- 
ever, which is a libel on human nature, does not only lead to 
general skepticism in other respects, but also undermines the 

* Ad Tolos. Ep. 241. 

t See the testimonies of Hackluyt, Baldens, and Tavernier, all Protestants, 
in Bouhour's Life of St. Xaverius, translated by the poet Dryden. 
t Ibid. § See Butler's Saints' Lives, May 26. 

|| See Marsollier's Life of St. F. de Sales, translated by Dr. Coombes. 
IT See his life by Daubenton, which is abridged by Butler, June 16, 



ATTESTATION OF SANCTITY. 



145 



Credit of the Gospel itself. For if all the ancient fathers and other 
writers are to be disbelieved, respecting the miracles of their 
times, and even those which they themselves witnessed, upon 
what grounds are we to believe them, in their report of the 
miracles which they had heard of Christ and his apostles, those 
main props of the Gospel and our common Christianity 1 Who 
knows but they may have forged all the contents of the former, 
and the whole history of the latter ? It was impossible that 
these consequences should escape the penetration of Middleton : 
but, in his opinion, a worse consequence, namely, a divine at- 
testation of the sanctity of the Catholic Church, which would in- 
evitably follow from admitting the veracity of the holy fathers, 
banished his dread of the former. Let him now speak to this 
point for himself, in his own flowing periods. He begins with 
establishing an important fact, which I also have been laboring 
to prove, where he says : " It must be confessed, that the claim 
to a miraculous power was universally asserted and believed in 
all Christian countries and in all ages of the church, till the 
time of the Reformation: for ecclesiastical history makes no 
difference between one age and another, but carries on the suc- 
cession of its miracles r as of all other common events, through 
all of them indifferently tov that memorable period."* As far 
as " church-historians can illustrate any thing, there is not a 
single point, in all history, so constantly, explicitly, and unani- 
mously affirmed by them, as the continual succession of those 
powers, through all ages, from the earliest father, who first 
mentions them, down to the Reformation ; which same succes- 
sion is still further deduced by persons of the same eminent 
character for probity, learning, and dignity, in the Romish 
Church, to this very day : so that the only doubt which can re- 
main with us is, whether church-historians are to be trusted or 
not ; for if any credit be due to them in the present case, it 
must reach to all or none : because the reason for believing 
them in any one age, will be found to be of equal force in all, 
as far as it depends on the character of the persons attesting, or 
on the thing attested."! We shall now hear Dr. Middleton's 
decision on this weighty matter, and upon what grounds it is 
formed. He says : " The prevailing opinion of Protestants, 
namely, of Tillotson, Marshall, Dodwell, &c, is that miracles 
continued during the three first centuries. Dr. Waterland 
brings them down to the fourth, Dr. Beriman to the fifth. 
These unwarily betrayed the Protestant cause into the hands 
of its enemies : for it was in those primitive ages, particularly 
in the third, fourth, and fifth, those flourishing times of mira- 



* Free Inquiry, Introduce Disc. p c xlv. 

13 



t Ibid, Pref. p, 15, 



146 



LETTER XXltt. 



cles, in which the chief corruptions of Popery, monkery, the 
worship of relics, invocations of saints, prayers for the dead, 
the superstitious use of images, and of sacraments, were intro- 
duced."* " We shall find, after the conversion of the Roman 
empire, the greater part of their boasted miracles were wrought 
either by monks, or relics, or the sign of the cross, &c. : where- 
fore, if we admit the miracles, we must admit the rites for the 
sake of which they were wrought : they both rest on the same 
bottom. "f "Everyone may see what a resemblance the prin- 
ciples and practice of the fourth century, as they are described 
by the most eminent fathers of that age, bear to the present rited 
of the Popish Church"% " When we reflect on the surprising 
confidence with which the fathers of the fourth age affirmed, as 
true, what they themselves had forged, or knew to be forged, it 
is natural to suspect that so bold a defiance of truth could not 
be acquired or become general at once, but must have been 
gradually carried to that height by the example of former 
ages."§ Such are the grounds on which this shameless dis- 
claimer accuses all the most holy and learned men whom the 
world has produced during eighteen hundred years, of forgery 
and a combination to cheat mankind. Fie does not say a word 
to show that the combination itself is either probable or possi- 
ble ; all he advances is, that this libel on human nature is 
necessary for the support of Protestantism : for he says, and this 
with evident truth : " By granting the Romanists but a single 
age of miracles, after the time of the apostles, we shall be en- 
tangled in a series of difficulties, whence we can never fairly 
extricate ourselves, till we allow the same powers also to the 
present age."|j 

Methinks I hear some of your society thus asking me : Do 
you then pretend that your church p>ossesses the miraculous powers 
at the present day ? — I answer, that the church never possessed 
miraculous powers, in the sense of most Protestant writers, so 
as to be able to effect cures, or other supernatural events, at her 
mere pleasure : for even the apostles could not do this : as we 
learn from the history of the lunatic child, Matt. xvii. 16. But 
this I say, that the Catholic Church, being always the beloved 
spouse of Christ, Rev. xxi. 9, and continuing at all times to 
bring forth children of heroical sanctity, God fails not in this, 
any more than in past ages, to illustrate her and them by un- 
questionable miracles. Accordingly, in those processes which 
are commonly going on, at the apostolical see, for the canoniza- 
tion of new saints, 1 fresh miracles of a recent date continue to 



* Free Inquiry, In trod. p. li. t Ibid. p. Ixvi. ? Ibid. p. Ixv. 

§ Ibid. p. lxxxir. || Ibid. p. xcvi. 

Si \mong the late canonizations are those, in 1807 and 1808, of St. F 



ATTESTATION OF SANCTITY. 



14T 



De proved with the highest degree of evidence, as I can testify 
from having perused, on the spot, the official printed account of 
some of them."* For the further satisfaction of your friends, 1 
will inform them that I have had satisfactory proof, that the as- 
tonishing catastrophe of Louis XVI., and his queen, in being 
beheaded am a scaffold, was foretold by a nun of Fougeres, Sceur 
Nativite, twenty years before it happened ; and that the banish- 
ment of the French clergy from their country, long before it 
happened, was predicted by the holy French pilgrim, Benedict 
Labre, whose miracles caused the conversion of the late Rev. 
Mr. Thayer, an American clergyman, who, during his resi- 
dence at Rome, was an ocular witness to several of them. With 
respect to miraculous cures of a late date, 1 have the most re- 
spectable attestation of several of them, and I am well acquaint- 
ed with four or five persons who have experienced them. The 
following facts are respectively attested, by the Rev. Thomas 
Sadler, of 'Tf afford, near Manchester, and the Rev. J, Crathorne, 
of Garswood, near Wigan : — Joseph Lamb, of Eccles, near Man- 
chester, on the 12th of August, 1814, fell from a hay-rick, four 
yards and a half high, by which accident the spine of his back 
appears to have been broken. Certain it is, that he could neither 
walk nor stand without crutches, down to the second of October, 
and that he described himself as suffering the most exquisite 
pain in his back. On that day, having prevailed, with much 
difficulty, upon his father, who was then a Protestant, to take 
him in a cart, with his wife and two friends, Thomas Cutler and 
Elizabeth Dooley, to Garswood, near Wigan, where the hand 
of F. Arrowsmith, one of the Catholic priests who suffered death 
at Lancaster, for the exercise of his religion, in the reign of 
Charles I., is preserved, and has often caused wonderful cures, 
he procured himself to be conveyed to the altar-rails of the 
chapel, and there to be signed, on his back, with the sign of the 
cross, by that hand ; when, feeling a particular sensation and 
total change in himself., as he expressed it, he exclaimed to his 
wife : Mary, I can walk! — This he did, without any help what- 
ever, walking first into an adjoining room, and thence to the cart 
which conveyed him home. With his debility, his pains also 
left him, and his back has continued well ever since. f These 

Caracciolo, founder of the Regular Clerks ; of St. Angela de Mercis, found- 
ress of the Ursuline Nuns ; of St. Mary of the Incarnation, Mile. Acarie, &c. 
One of the latest beatifications is that of B. Alfonso Liguori, Bishop of St. 
Aga'a de Goti. 

* One of ihese, proved in the process of the last-mentioned saint, consisted 
in the cure and restoration of an amputated breast of a woman, who was at 
the point of deaih from a cancer. 

t The Rev. Mr. Sadler's letter to me is dated August 6, 1817, 



148 



letter XML- 



particulars the above-named persons all declare upon oath. 1 
have attestations of incurable cancers, and other disorders, being 
suddenly remedied by the same instrument of God's bounty 5 
but it would be a tedious work to transcribe them, or the other 
attestations in my possession of a similar nature. 

Among those of my personal acquaintance who have experi- 
enced supernatural cures, I will mention Mary Wood, now 
living at Taunton Lodge, where several other witnesses of the 
facts which I am going to state live with her. " On March 15, 
1809, Mary Wood, in attempting to open a sash-window, pushed 
her left hand through a pane of glass, which caused a very 
large and deep transverse wound in the inside of the left arm, 
and divided the muscles and nearly the whole of the tendons 
that lead to the hand ; from which accident she not only suf- 
fered, at times, the most acute pain, but was from the period I 
first saw her (March 15) till some time in July, totally deprived 
of the use of her hand and arm."* What passed between the 
latter end of July, when, as the surgeon elsewhere says, " he 
left his patient," having no hopes of restoring her, till the 6th 
of August, on the night of which she was perfectly and mirac- 
ulously cured, I shall copy from a letter to me, date Nov. 19, 
1809, by her amanuensis, Miss Maria Hornyold : " The sur- 
geon gave little or no hopes of her ever again having the use 
of her hand, which, together with the arm, seemed withered 
and somewhat contracted; only saying, in some years, nature 
might give her some little use of it, which was considered by 
her superiors as a mere delusive comfort. Despairing of fur- 
ther human assistance towards her cure, she determined, with the 
approbation of her said superiors, to have recourse to God, through 
the intercession of St. Winefred, by a No vena, f Accordingly, 
on the 6th of August, she put a piece of moss, from the saint's 
well, on her arm, continuing recollected and praying, &c, 
when, to her great surprise, the next morning she found she 
could dress herself, put her arm behind her and to her head, 
having regained the free use and full strength of it. In short, 
she was perfectly cured !" In this state I myself saw her a 
few years afterwards, when I examined her hand ; and in the 
same state she still continues, at the above-named place, with 
many other highly creditable vouchers who are ready respect- 
ively to attest these particulars. " On the 16th of the month, 
the surgeon was sent for ; and, being asked his opinion con- 
cerning Mary Wood's arm, he gave no hope of a perfect cure, 

* This account is copied from a letter to Miss F. T. Bird, dated Septem. 
ber 30, 1809, by Mr. Woodford, an eminent surgeon of Taunton, who at- 
tended Mary Wood. 

t Certain prayers continued during nine days, 



ATTESTATION OF SANCTITY. 



149 



and very little of her ever having even ike least use of it ; when, 
she being introduced to him and showing him the arm, which 
he thoroughly examined and tried, he was so affected at the 
sight and the recital of the manner of the cure as to shed tears, 
and exclaim, It is a special interposition of divine Providence" 
I shall say little of the miraculous cure of Winefred White, 
a young woman of Wolverhampton, on the 28th of June, 1805, 
at Holy-well, having published a detailed account of it soon 
after it happened, which has been republished in England and 
in Ireland.* Let it suffice to say, 1st, that the disease was one of 
the most alarming of a topical nature of any that is known, 
namely, a curvature of the spine, as her physician and surgeon 
ascertained, who treated it accordingly, by making two great 
issues, one on each side of the spine, of which the marks are 
still imprinted on the patient's back ; 2dly, that, besides the 
most acute pains throughout the whole nervous system, and 
particularly in the brain, this disease of the spine produced a 
hemiplegia, or palsy, on one side of the patient,- so that when 
she could feebly crawl with the help of a crutch under her 
right arm, she was forced to drag her left leg and arm after 
her, just as if they constituted no part of her body ; 3dly, that 
her disorder was of long continuance, namely, of three years' 
standing, though not in the same degree till the latter part of. 
that time, and that it was publicly known to all her neighbors 
and a great many others ; 4thly, that having performed the 
acts of devotion which she felt herself called to undertake, and 
having bathed in the fountain, she, in one instant of time, on 
the 28th of June, 1805, found herself freed from all her pains 
and disabilities, so as to be able to walk, run, and jump like 
any other young person, and to carry a greater weight with the 
left arm than she could with the right ; 5thly, that she has con- 
tinued in this state these thirteen years down to the present 
time ; and that all the above-mentioned circumstances have 
been ascertained by me in the regular examination of the seve- 
ral witnesses of them, in the places of their respective resi- 
dences, namely, in Staffordshire, Lancashire, and Wales, they 
being persons of different counties, no less than of different reli- 
gions and situations in life. The authentic documents of the 
examination, and of the whole process of the cure, are contained 
in the work referred to above. Several of the witnesses are 
still living, as is Winefred White herself, f— I am, &c. 

John Milner. 

* By Keating & Brown, Duke-st., Grosvenor-sq,, London ; Coyne, Dublin. 

t She has since departed this life, namely, on the 13th of January, in the 
year 1824, being the nineteenth year since the cure of her hemiplegia,, She 
died of a consumption, 

13* 



150 



LETTER XXIV. 



LETTER XXIV. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. 

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 

Dear sir — 

I subscribe to the objection, which you say has been sug- 
gested to you by your learned friend, on the subject of miracles. 
Namely, I admit that a vast number of incredible and false 
miracles, as well as other fables, have been forged by some, 
and believed by other Catholics in every age of the church, in- 
cluding that of the apostles.* I agree with him and you in 
rejecting the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, the Spec- 
ulum of Vincentius Belluacensis, the Saints' Lives of the Patri- 
cian Metaphrastes, and scores of similar legends, stuffed, as they 
are, with relations of miracles of every description. But, sir, 
are we to deny the truth of all history, because there are num- 
berless false histories ? Are we to question the four evangel- 
ists, because there have been several fabricated gospels ? Most 
certainly not : but we must make the best use we can of the 
discernment and judgment which God has given us, to distin- 
guish false accounts of every kind from those which are true ; 
and we ought, I allow, to make use of redoubled diligence and 
caution, in examining alleged revelations and events contrary 
to the general laws of nature. 

Your friend's second objection, which impeaches the diligence, 
integrity, and discernment of the cardinals, prelates, and other 
ecclesiastics at Rome, appointed to examine into the proofs of 
the miracles there published, shows that he is little acquainted 
with the subject he talks of. In the first place, then, a juridical 
examination of each reported miracle must be made in the place 
where it is said to have happened, and the depositions of the 
several witnesses must be given upon oath ; this examination is 
generally repeated two or three different times, at intervals. 
In the next place, the examiners at Rome are unquestionably 
men of character, talents, and learning, who, nevertheless, are 
not permitted to pronounce upon any cure or other effect in na- 
ture, till they have received a regular report of physicians and 
naturalists upon it. So far from being precipitate, it employs 
them whole years to come to a decision, on a few cases, respect- 
ing each saint ; this is printed and handed about among indiffer- 
ent persons, previously to its being laid before the pope. In 
short, so strict is the examination, that, according to an Italian 

* St. Jerom, in rejecting certain current fables concerning St. Paul and 
St. Thecla, mentions a priest who was deposed by- St. John the Evangelist, 
for inventing similar stories. — De Script. Apost. Pope Gelasius, in the fifth 
century, condemned several apochryphal gospels and epistles, as also several 
false legends of saints, and among the latter, the common ones of St, George, 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



151 



proverb, it is next to a miracle to get a miracle proved at Rome. 
It is reported by F. Daubenton, that an English Protestant gen- 
tleman, meeting, in that city, with a printed process of forty 
miracles, which had been laid before the congregation of rites, 
to which the examination of them belonged, was so well satis- 
fied with the respective proofs of them, as to express a wish 
that Rome would never allow of any miracles, but such as were 
as strongly proved as those appeared to be, when, to his great 
surprise, he was informed that every one of these had been re- 
jected by Rome, as not sufficiently proved ! 

Nor can I admit of the third objection of your friend, by which 
he rejects our miracles, on the alleged ground, that there was 
not sufficient cause for the performance of them ; for, not to 
mention that many of them were performed for the conversion 
of infidels, I am bound to cry out with the apostle, "Who hath 
known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor !" 
Rom. xi. 34. Thus much is certain from Scripture, that the 
same Deity who preserved Jonas in the whale's belly to preach 
repentance to the Ninevites, created a gourd to shelter his head 
from the heat of the sun, (Jonas iv. 6,) and that as he sent fire 
from heaven to save his prophet Elias, so he caused iron to 
swim, in order to enable the son of a prophet to restore the axe 
which had been borrowed. 2 Kings, vi. 6. In like manner, 
we are not to reject miracles, sufficiently proved, under a pre- 
text that they are mean, and unworthy the hand of Omnipo- 
tence ; for we are assured, that God equally turned the dust of 
Egypt into lice, and the waters of it into blood. Exod. viii. 

Having lately perused the works of several of the most cele- 
brated Protestant writers, who, in defending the Scripture-mira- 
cles, endeavored to invalidate the credit of those they are pleased 
to call Popish miracles, I think it just, both to your cause and 
my own, to state the chief arguments they make use of, and 
the answers which occur to me in refutation of them. On this 
head, I cannot help expressing my surprise and conceFn that 
writers of character, and some of them of high dignity, should 
have published several gross falsehoods, not, I trust, intention- 
ally, but from the blind precipitancy and infatuation which a 
panic fear of Popery generally produces. The late learned 
Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. J. Douglas, has borrowed from the 
infidel Gibbon what he calls, " A most satisfying proof that the 
miracles ascribed to the Romish saints are forgeries of an age 
posterior to that they lay claim to."* The latter says, " It may 
seem remarkable, that Bernard of Clairvaux, who records so 

* The criterion, or rules, by which the true miracles of the New Testa- 
ment are distinguished from the spurious miracles of pagans and papists, by 
John Douglas, D» D., Lord Bishop of Salisbury, p. 71, note, 



152 



LETTER XXIV. 



many miracles of his friend St. Malachy, never takes notice of 
his own, which, in their turn, however, are carefully related by 
his companions and disciples. In the long series of ecclesiasti- 
cal history, does there occur an instance of a saint asserting 
that he himself possessed the gift of miracles ?"* Adopting this 
objection, the Bishop of Salisbury says : " I may safely chal- 
lenge the admirers of the Romish saints to produce any writing 
of any of them, in which a power of working miracles is 
claimed."! Elsewhere he says : " From Xaverius himself 
(namely, from his published letters) we are furnished, not only 
with a negative evidence against his having any miraculous 
power, but also with a positive fact, which is the strongest pos- 
sible presumption against it."f Nevertheless, in spite of the 
confident assertions of these celebrated authors, it is certain 
(though the last things which true saints choose to speak of are 
their own supernatural favors) that several of them, when the 
occasion required it, have spoken of the miracles of which they 
were the instruments ;§ and, among the rest, these two identical 
saints, St. Bernard and St. Francis Xaverius, whom Gibbon 
and Dr. Douglas instance to prove their assertion. I have 
already referred to the passages in the works of St. Bernard, 
where he speaks of his miracles as of notorious facts, and I here 
again insert them in a note.|| With respect to St. Xaverius, he 
not only mentions, in those very letters which Dr. Douglas appeals 
to, a miraculous cure, which he wrought upon a dying woman 
in the kingdom of Travancor, but he expressly calls it a mira- 
cle, and affirms that it caused the conversion of the whole vil- 
lage in which she resided. 

A second palpable falsehood is thus confidently advanced by 
the capital enemy of miracles, Dr. Middleton : " I might risk 
the merit of my argument on this single point, that, after the 
apostolic times, there is not, in all history, one instance, either 

* Hist, of Decline and Fall, chap. xv. 

t Criterion, p. 369. t Ibid. p. 76. 

§ The great St. Martin acknowledged his own miracles, since, according 
to his friend and biographer, Sulpicius, Dialogue 2, he used to say that he 
was not endowed with so great a power of working them, after he was a 
a bishop, as he had been before. 

|| Addressing himself to P. Eugenius III., in answer to his enemies, who 
reproached him with the ill success of the second crusade, he says : " Sed 
dicunt forsitan isti : Unde scimus quod a Domino sertno egressus sit ? Qua 
signa tufacis ut credamus tibi? Non est quod ad ista ipse respondeam : 
parcendum verecundiee meee : responde tu pro me et pro te ipso, secundum 
ea quae vidisti et audisti." — De Consid.l. ii. c. 1. In like manner, writing to 
the people of Thoulouse, of his miracles wrought there, he says : " Mora 
quidem brevis apud vos sed non infructuosa : veritate nimirum per nos man. 
ifestata., non solum in sermone sed etiam in virtute"~Ep. 241, 

V Epist. S. F. Xaq, 1, i. ep. iv. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED, 



153 



well attested, or even so much as mentioned, of any particular 
person who had ever exercised that gift, (of tongues,) or pre- 
tended to exercise it, in any age or country whatsoever."* In 
case your learned friend is disposed to take up the cause of 
Middleton, I beg to refer him to the history of St. Pacomius, the 
Egyptian abbot, and founder of the Cenobites, who, " though he 
never learned the Greek or Latin language, yet sometimes mi- 
raculously spoke them both," as his disciple and biographer 
reports ;f and to that of the renowned preacher, St. Vincent 
Ferrer, who, having the gift of tongues, preached indifferently 
to Jews, Moors, and Christians, in their respective languages, 
and converted incredible numbers of each of these descriptions.^; 
In like manner, the bull of the canonization of St. Lewis Ber- 
trand, A.D. 1671, declares that he possessed the gift of tongues, 
by means of which he converted as many as 10,000 Indians of 
different tribes in South America, in the space of three years. § 
Lastly, let your friend peruse the history of the great Apostle 
of the East Indies, St. Xaverius, who, though he ordinarily 
studied the languages of the several nations to whom he an- 
nounced the word of God, yet on particular occasions, he was 
empowered to speak those which he had not learned. |j This 
was the case in Travancor, as his companion Vaz testifies ; so 
as to enable him to convert and instruct 10,000 infidels, all of 
whom he baptized with his own hand. This was the case 
again at Amanguchi, in Japan, where he met with a number of 
Chinese merchants. Finally, the bull of St. Xaverius's canoni- 
zation by Urban VIII. proclaims to the world, that this saint 
was illustrated with the gift of tongues. So false is the bold 
assertion of Middleton, adopted in part by Bishop Douglas and 
other Protestants, that " there is not, in all history, one instance, 
either well attested, or so much as mentioned, of any person 
who had ever exercised the gift of tongues, or pretended to ex- 
ercise it." 

Nor is there more truth in what the Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. 
Paley, &c, maintain, namely, that " the Popish miracles," as 
they insultingly call them, " were not wrought to confirm any 
truth, and that no converts were made by them !"1T In refuta- 
tion of this, I may again refer to the epitaph of our apostle, St. 
Augustin, and to the miracles of St. Bernard at Sarlat, men- 
tioned above. To these instances, I may add the prodigy of 

* Inquiry into Mirac. Powers, p. 120, &c. 
t Tillemont. Mem. Ecc. torn. vii. 

t See his Life by Lanzano, Bishop of Lucca, also Spondanus ad An. 1403. 

§ See Alban Butler's Saints' Lives, Oct. 9. 

|| See Bouhour's Life of St. Xaverius, translated by Dryden, &c. 

* Criterion, p. 369. View of Evidences, by Dr. Paley, vol i. p. 346. 



154 



LETTER XXIV. 



St. Dominic, who, to prove the truth of the Catholic doctrine, 
threw a book containing it into the flames, in which it remained 
unconsumed ; at the same time challenging the heretics, whom 
he was addressing, to make the same experiment on their creed.* 
In like manner, St. Xaverius, on a certain occasion, finding his 
words to have no effect on his Indian auditory, requested them 
to open the grave of a corpse that had been buried the day be- 
fore, when falling on his knees, he besought God to restore it to 
life for the conversion of the infidels present ; upon which, the 
dead man was instantly restored to life and perfect health, and 
the country round about received the faith. f 

It is chiefly through the sides of the Apostle of India, that the 
author of The Criterion endeavors to wound the credit of the 
other saints, and the Catholic Church, on the point of miracles. 
Hence, in the application of his three labored rules of criticism, 
he objects, that the alleged miracles of St. Xaverius were per- 
formed in the extremities of the east ; — that the accounts of 
them were published, not on the spot, but in Europe, at an im- 
mense distance ; — and this not till thirty-five years after the 
saint's death. ^ A single document, of the most public nature, 
at once overturns all the three rules in regard of this saint. 
He died at the end of 1552 ; and on the 28th of March, 1556, 
a letter was sent from Lisbon by John III., King of Portugal, to 
his viceroy in India, Don Francisco Baretto, " enjoining him to 
take depositions upon oath, in all parts of the Indies, where 
there is a probability of finding witnesses, not only concerning 
the life and manners of Francis Xaverius, and of all the things 
commendably done by him, for the salvation and example of 
men, but also concerning the miracles which he has wrought, 
both living and dead. You shall send these authentic instru- 
ments, with all the evidences and proofs, signed with your hand- 
writing, and sealed with your ring, by three different convey- 
ances. "§ 

But the author of the Criterion, it seems, has more positive, 
and what he calls "conclusive evidence, that during this time 

* Petrus Valis Cern. Hist. Alb. Butler's Saints' Lives, Aug. 4. 

t This was one of the miracles referred to by the Paravas of Cape Como- 
rin, when the Dutch sent a minister from Batavia, to proselyte them to Pro- 
testantism. On this occasion, they answered this minister's discourse thus : 
"The great father (St. Xaverius) raised to life five or six dead persons; do 
you raise twice as many; do you cure ail our sick, and make the sea twice 
as productive of fish as it now is, and then we will listen to you." Du 
Halde's Recueil, vol. v. Berault's Bercastle's Hist. Ecc. torn, xxiii. p. 454. 

t Criter. pp. 78, 81. 

§ This letter is extant in Tersellinus, but had been published several years 
before by Emanuel Acosta, in his JRerurn in Oriente Gestcrum. Dilingen, 
1571. Paris, 1572. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



155 



(thirty-five years from his death) Xaverius's miracles had not 
been heard of. The evidence," he says, " I shall allege, is 
that of Acosta, (namely Joseph Acosta,) who himself had been 
a missionary among the Indians. His work, De Procuranda 
Indorum Salute, was printed in 1589, that is, about thirty-seven 
years after the death of Xaverius, and in it we find an express 
acknowledgment that no miracles had ever been performed by 
missionaries among the Indians. — Acosta was himself a Jesuit, 
and therefore from his silence, we may infer unexceptionably, 
that between thirty and forty years had elapsed before Xave- 
rius's miracles were thought of.' ; * — The argument has been 
thought so conclusive, that Mr. Le Mesurier,T Hugh Farmer,:]: 
the Rev. Peter Roberts,§ and other Protestant writers on mira- 
cles, have adopted it with exultation, and it has probably con- 
tributed as much to the author's title of Detector Douglas, as his 
exposure of the two impostors, Lauder and Archibald Bower. 
But what will the admirers of this Detector say, if it should ap- 
pear that Acosta barely says, that " there was not the same fac- 
ulty or facility of working miracles among the missionaries, 
which there was among the apostles ?"|| Or rather, what will 
they say, if this same Acosta, in the very work which Dr. 
Douglas quotes, expressly asserts, that signs and miracles too 
numerous to be related, accompanied the preaching of the gos- 
pel both in the East and in the West Indies in his own time /IT 
And when, with respect to this illustrious personage, he further 
adds, " Blessed Father Francis," as he calls him, " being a man of 
an apostolical life, so many and such great signs have been re- 
ported of him by numerous and credible witnesses, that hardly 
more in number or greater in magnitude are read of any one, 
except the apostles.** Now all this I affirm Acosta does say, in 
the very work quoted by Bishop Douglas, a copy of which, I 
beg leave to inform your learned friend, (and through him, other 
learned men,) is to be found in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, 
under the title which I insert below. ff The author of The CrU 

* Criterion, p. 73. t Bampton Lectures, p. 288. 

X Dissertation on Miracles, p. 205. § Observations on a pamphlet. 

|| " Altera causa in nobis est cur apostolica preedicatio institui omnino non 
possit Apostolice, quod miraculorum nulla facultas sit, quae apostoli plurima 
perpetrarunt." — Acosta, de Proc. 1. ii. c. 8. 

IT " Et quidem dona spiritus signa et miracula, quae fidei prsedicatione in- 
notuerunt, his etiam temporibus, quando charitas, usque adeo refrixit, ennu- 
merare longum esset, turn in Oriental! ilia India, turn in hac Occidentali." — 
De Procur. 1. i. c. 6. p. 141. 

** " Convertamus oculos in nostri sasculi hominen, B. Magistrum Fran- 
ciscum, virum apostolicae vitse, cujus tot et tarn magna signa referuntur per 
plurimos, eosque idoneos testes, ut vix de alio, exceptis apostolis, plura le- 
gantur. Quid M agister Gaspar aliique socii, &c." — De Procur. Ind. Salut. 
I, ii. c. 10, p. 22b. 

tt The work of Joseph Acosta, Dz Procuranda Indorum Salute, is to be 



156 



LETTER XXIV, 



terion is hardly entitled to more mercy, for his cavils on what 
Ribadeneira says of the miracles of St. Ignatius, than for those 
on what Acosta says of the miracles of St. Xaverius. The 
fact is, the Council of Trent, having recently prohibited the pub- 
lication of any new miracles, until they had been examined and 
approved of by the proper ecclesiastical authority, Ribadeneira, 
in the first edition of his Life of St. Ignatius, observed due cau- 
tion in speaking of this saint's miracles. However, in that very 
edition, he declared that many such had been wrought by him ; 
which having been afterwards juridically proved, in the process 
of the saint's canonization, his biographer published them with- 
out scruple, as he candidly and satisfactorily informs his read- 
ers, in that third edition ; which now stands in his folio work of 
The Saints' Lives.* 

I shall close this very long letter with a very few words re- 
specting a work which has lately appeared, animadverting on 
my account of the Miraculous vure of Wmefred White.* The 
writer sets out with the system of Dr. Miudleton, by admitting 
none except Scripture miracles ; but very soon he undermines 
these miracles also, where he says: "An independent and ex- 
press uivine testimony is that alone, which can assure us whe- 
ther elfects are miraculous or not, except in a few cases." He 
thus reserves the proofs of Christianity, as its advocates and its 
divine Founder himself have laid them down. He adds: "No 
mortal ought to have the presumption to say, a thing is or is 
not contrary to the established laws of nature." Again he 

inquired for at the Bodleian Library under the following quaint title : Johanna 
Papissa toti orbi manifesto,, 8vo. c. 29. Art. Seld., because, for some reason 
or other, it is bound up with that fanatical treatise. 

* " Mihi tantum abest ut ad vitam Ignatii illustrandam miracula deese vi. 
deantur, ut multa eaque praestantissima judicem in media luce versari." 
The writer proceeds to mention several cures, &c. edit. 1572. — I cannot 
close this article without protesting against the disingenuity of several Pro- 
testant writers, in reproaching Catholics with the impositions practised by 
the Jansenist heretics at the tomb of Abbe* Paris. In fact, who detected 
those impositions, and furnished Dr. Campbell, Dr. Douglas, &c, with argu- 
ments against them, except our Catholic prelates and theologians ? In like 
manner, Catholics have reason to complain of these and other Protestant 
writers, for the manner in which they discuss the stupendous miracle that 
took place at Saragossa in 1640, on one Michael Pellicer, whose leg, having 
been amputated, he, by his prayers, obtained a new, natural leg : just as if 
this miracle rested on no better foundation than the slight mention which 
Cardinal Retz makes of it in his Memoirs. In fact, we might have expected 
that learned divines would have known that this miracle had been amply 
discussed, soon after it happened, between Dr. Stillingfleet and the Jesuit 
Edward Worsley ; in which discussion, the latter produced such attestations 
of the fact as it seems impossible to discredit. — See Reason and Religion, 
p. 328. 

t By the Rev. Peter Roberts, Rector of Llanarmon, &c. 



CATHOLICITY. 



15? 



says : " To prove a miracle there must be a proof of the par- 
ticular divine agency." According to this system we may 
say : No one knows but the motion of the funeral procession, 
or some occult quality of nature, raised to life the widow of 
Nairn's son ! Mr. Roberts will have no difficulty in saying so, 
as he denies that the resurrection of the murdered man from 
the touch of the prophet Elisha's bones, 2 Kings, xiii., was a 
miracle ! Possessed of this opinion, he can readily persuade 
himself, that a curvated spine and hemiplegia, or any other 
disease whatever, may be cured in an instant, by immersion in 
cold water, or by any other means. As it is not likely, how- 
ever, that any one else will adopt his opinion, I will say no 
more of his physical arguments-on this subject. — He next pro- 
ceeds to charge W. White and her friends with a studied impo- 
sition ; in support of which charge, he asserts, that " the Church 
of Rome had not announced a miracle for many years." This 
only proves, that his ignorance of what is continually going on 
in the church, is equal to his bigotry against it. The same 
ignorance and bigotry are manifested in the ridiculous story 
concerning Sixtus V., which he copies from the unprincipled 
Leti, as also in his account of the exploded ^nd condemned 
book, the TaxcE Cancellarice, &c* Towards the conclusion of 
his work, he expresses a doubt whether I have read Bishop 
Douglas's Criterion, though I have so frequently quoted it ; 
because, he says, if I had read it, I must have known that 
Acosta proves that St. Xaverius wrought no miracles among the 
Indians, and that the same thing appears from the saint's own 
letters. Now the only thing, dear sir, which these assertions 
prove, is that Mr. Roberts himself, no more than Bishop Doug- 
las, ever read either Acosta's work, or St. Xaverius 's letters, 
notwithstanding they so frequently refer to them ; for this is 
the only way of acquitting them of a far heavier charge. 

I am, dear sir, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XXV. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. &c. 

ON THE TRUE CHURCH BEING CATHOLIC. 
Dear sir — 

In treating of this third mark of the true church, as expressed 
in our common creed, I feel my spirits sink within me, and I 
am almost tempted to throw away my pen, in despair. For 
what chance is there of opening the eyes of candid Protestants 

* Euseb. Eccles. Hist, 1. vi. c. 15. 
14 



158 



LETTER XXV. 



to the other marks of the church, if they are capable of keeping 
them shut to this ? Every time they address the God of truth, 
either in solemn worship or in private devotion, they are forced, 
each of them, to repeat : I believe in THE CATHOLIC Church; 
and yet if I ask any of them the question : Are you a Catholic ? 
he is sure to answer me : No, I am a PROTESTANT/ Was 
there ever a more glaring instance of inconsistency and self- 
condemnation among rational beings ! 

At the first promulgation of the Gospel, its followers were 
distinguished from the Jews by the name of Christians, as we 
learn from Scripture, Acts, xi. 26. Hence the title of Catholic 
did not occur in the primitive edition of the Apostles' Creed ;* 
but no sooner did heresies and schisms arise, to disturb the 
peace of the church, than there was found to be a necessity of 
discriminating the main stock of her faithful children, to whom 
the promises of Christ belonged, from those self-willed choosers 
of their articles of belief, as the word heretic signifies, and from 
those disobedient separatists, as the word schismatic means. For 
this purpose the title of CATHOLIC, or Universal, was adopted, 
and applied to the true church and her children. Accordingly, 
we find it used by the immediate disciples of ,the apostles, as a 
distinguishing mark of the true church. One of these was the 
illustrious martyr St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who, writing 
to the church of Smyrna, expressly says, that " Christ is where 
the Catholic Church is." In like manner, the same Church of 
Smyrna, giving a relation of the martyrdom of that holy bishop 
St. Polycarp, who was equally a disciple of the apostles, ad- 
dresses it to " The Catholic Churches. "f This characteristic 
title of the true church continued to be pointed out by the suc- 
ceeding fathers in their writings and the acts of their councils.:}: 
St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, in the 4th century, gives the 
following direction to his pupils : " If you go into any city, do 
not ask merely, Where is the church, or house of God? because 
the heretics pretend to have this : but ask, Which is the Catholic 
Church? because this title belongs alone to our holy mother. "§ 
" We," says a father of the 5th century, " are called Catholic 
Christians. "|| His contemporary, St. Pacian, describes himself 
as follows : " Christian is my name, Catholic is my surname : by 
the former I am called, by the latter I am distinguished. By 
the name of Catholic, our society is distinguished from all here- 
licsS'% But there is not one of the fathers or doctors of anti- 

* See four collated copies of it in Dupin's Bib. Eccl. torn. 1. 
t Euseb. Ecc. Hist. I. iv. c. 15. 

t SS. Justin. Clem. Alex. Appolin. 1 Nicsean can. 8. 1. Constan can. 
7. &c. § Catech. 18. || Salvia de Gubern. Dei. 1. iv. 

T St. Pacian, Ep. i. ad Symp. 



CATHOLICITY. 



159 



fjuity, who enlarges so copiously or so pointedly on this title of 
the true church, as the great St. Augustin, who died in the early 
part of the 5th century. " Many things," lie says, " detain 

me in the bosom of the Catholic Church the very name of 

CATHOLIC detains me in it, which she has so happily pre- 
served amidst the different heretics ; that whereas they are all 
desirous of being called Catholics, yet, if any stranger were to 
ask them, Which is the assembly of the Catholics ? none of them 
would dare to point out his own place of worship."* To the same 
purpose, he says elsewhere : " We must hold fast the commu- 
nion of that church which is called Catholic, not only by her 
own children, but also by all her enemies. For heretics and 
schismatics, whether they will or not, when they are speaking 
of the Catholic Church with strangers, or with their own people, 
call her by the name of Catholic, inasmuch as they would not 
be understood, if they did not call her by the name by which all 
the world calls her."f In proportion to their affection for the 
glorious name of Catholic, is the aversion of these primitive doc- 
tors, to every ecclesiastical name or title derived from particu- 
lar persons, countries, or opinions. " What new heresy," says 
St. Vincent of Lerins, in the 6th century, " ever sprouted up, 
without bearing the name of its founder, the date of its origin," 
&c.:j: St. Justin, the philosopher and martyr, had previously 
made the same remark in the second century, with respect to 
the Marcionite, Valentinian, and other heretics of his time.§ 
Finally, the nervous St. Jerom lays down the following rule on 
this subject : " We must live and die in that church, which, 
having been founded by the apostles, continues down to the pre- 
sent day. If, then, you should hear of any Christians not 
deriving their name from Christ, but from some other founder, 
as the Marcionites, the Valentinians, &c, be persuaded that 
they are not of Christ's society, but of Antichrist's. "|| 

I now appeal to you, dear sir, and to the respectable friends 
who are accustomed to deliberate with you on religious subjects, 
whether these observations and arguments of the ancient fathers 
are not as strikingly true in this 19th century, as they were dur- 
ing the six first centuries, in which they wrote ? Is there not 
among the rival churches, one exclusively known and distin- 
guished by the name and title of THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, 
as well in England, Holland, and other countries, which protest 
against this church, as in those which adhere to it ? Does not 
this effulgent mark of the true religion so incontestably belong 



* Contra. Epist. Fundam. c. 1. t De Ver. Relig. c. 7. 

t Common. Advers. User. c. 34. § Advers. Tryphon. 
il Advers. Luciferan. * 



160 



LETTER XXVI. 



to us, in spite of every effort to obscure it by the nick-names of 
Papists, Romanists, &c.,* that the rule of St. Cyril and St. Au- 
gustin is as good and certain now, as it was in their times? 
What I mean is this : if any stranger in London, Edinburgh, or 
Amsterdam, were to ask his way to the Catholic chapel, I would 
risk my life for it, that no sober Protestant inhabitant would 
direct him to any other place of worship than to ours. On the 
other hand, it is notorious, that the different sects of Protestants, 
like the heretics and schismatics of old, are denominated either 
from their founders, as the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Socin- 
ians, &c, or from the countries in which they prevail, as the 
Church of England, the Kirk of Scotland, the Moravians, &c; 
or from some novelty in their belief or practice, as the Anabap- 
tists, the Independents, the Quakers, &c. The first father of 
Protestants was so sensible that he and they were destitute of 
every claim to the title of Catholic, that in translating the Apos- 
tles' Creed into Dutch, he substituted the word Christian for 
that of Catholic. The first Lutherans did the same thing in 
their catechism, for which they are reproached by the famous 
Fulke, who, to his own confusion, proves that the true church 
of Christ must be Catholic in name, as well as in substance.^ 

I am, dear sir, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XXVL— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c. 

ON THE QUALITIES OF CATHOLICITY. 
Dear sir — 

To proceed now, from the name Catholic, to the signification 
of that name : this is to be gathered from the etymology of the 
word itself, and from the sense in which the apostolical fathers 
and other doctors of the church have constantly used it. It is 
derived from the Greek word KaBa'KiKbs, which means Universal ; 
and, accordingly, it has ever been employed by those writers, 
to discriminate the great body of Christians, under their legiti- 
mate pastors, and subsisting in all nations and all ages, from 
those comparatively small bodies of Christians, who, in certain 
places, and at certain times, have been separated from it. 
" The Catholic Church," says St. Augustin, "is so called, be- 
cause it is spread throughout the world. "J " If your church," 
adds he, addressing certain heretics, " is Catholic, show me that 

* St. Gregory of Tours, speaking of the Arians, and other contemporary- 
heretics of the 6th century, says : " Romanorum nomine vocitant nostrae 
religionis homines." Hist. ]. xvii. c. 25. 

t On the New Testamfnt, p. 378. t Epist. 170. ad S. Sever. 



CATHOLICITY- 



161 



it spreads its branches throughout the world ; for such is the 
meaning of the word Catholic."* " The Catholic or universal 
doctrine," writes St. Vincent of Lerins, " is that which remains 
the same throughout all ages, and will continue so till the end 
of the world. — He is a true Catholic, who firmly adheres to the 
faith which he knows the Catholic Church has universally 
taught from the days of old."f Jt follows, from these and other 
testimonies of the fathers, and from the meaning of the term 
itself, that the true church is Catholic or universal in three sev- 
eral respects, as to persons, as to places, and as to time. It 
consists of the most numerous body of Christians ; it is more or 
less diffused wherever Christianity prevails ; and it has visibly 
existed ever since the time of the apostles. Hence, dear sir, when 
you hear me glorying in the name of Catholic, you are to under- 
stand me as equivalently proclaiming : — I am not a Lutheran, 
nor a Calvinist, nor a Whitfieldite, nor a Wesleyan ; I am not 
of the Church of England, nor of the Kirk of Seotland, nor of 
the Consistory of Geneva : I can tell the place where, and the 
time when, each of these sects began ; and I can describe the 
limits within which they are respectively confined : but I am a 
member of that great Catholic Church, which was planted by 
Christ and his apostles, and has been spread throughout the 
world, and which still constitutes the main stock of Christianity ; 
that to which all the fathers of antiquity and the saints of all 
ages have belonged on earth, and still belong in the bright re- 
gions above ; that which has endured and overcome the persecu- 
tions and heresies of eighteen centuries : in short, that against 
which the gates of hell have not prevailed, and we are assured 
never shall prevail. All this is implied by my title of Catholic. 

But to form a more accurate opinion of the number and diffu- 
siveness of Catholics, compared with any sect of Protestants, it 
is proper to take a slight survey of their state in the four quar- 
ters of the world. In Europe, then, notwithstanding the revo- 
lutionary persecutions which the Catholic religion has endured, 
and is enduring, it is still the religion of the several states of 
Italy, of most of the Swiss Cantons, of Piedmont, of France, of 
Spain, of Portugal, and of the islands in the Mediterranean, of 
three parts in four of the Irish, of far the greater part of the 
Netherlands, Poland, Bohemia, Germany, Hungary, and the 
neighboring provinces ; and in those kingdoms and states in 
which it is not the established religion, its followers are very 

* Contra Gaudent. 1. iii. c. 1. 

t Commonit. The same father briefly and accurately defines the Catho. 
lie doctrine to be, that which has been believed Semper et ubique et ah qvu 
nibus, 

14* 



162 



LETTER XXV. 



numerous, as in Holland, Russia, Turkey, the Lutheran and 
Calvinistic states of Germany and England. Even in Sweden 
and Denmark several Catholic congregations, with their respec- 
tive pastors, are to be found. — The whole vast continent of 
South America, inhabited by many millions of converted In- 
dians, as well as by Spaniards and Portuguese, may be said to 
be Catholic ; the same may be said of the empire of Mexico, 
and the surrounding kingdoms in North. America, including 
California, Cuba, Hispaniola, &c; Canada and Louisiana are 
chiefly Catholic; and throughout the United Provinces, tjie 
Catholic religion, with its several establishments, is completely 
protected, and unboundedly propagated. — To say nothing of the 
islands of Africa, inhabited by Catholics, such as Malta, Ma- 
deira, Cape Verd, the Canaries, the Azores, Mauritius, Goree, 
&c, there are numerous churches of Catholics, established and 
organized under their pastors, in Egypt, Ethiopia, Algiers, 
Tunis, and th£ other Barbary states on the northern coast ; and 
thence, in all the Portuguese settlements along the western 
coast, particularly at Angola and Congo. Even on the eastern 
coast, especially in the kingdom of Zanguebar and Monopotapa, 
are numerous Catholic churches. There are also numerous 
Catholic priests, and many bishops, with numerous flocks, 
throughout the greater .part of Asia. All the Maronites about 
Mount Libanus, with their bishops, priests, and monks, are 
Catholics ; so are many of the Armenians, Persians, and other 
Christians, of the surrounding kingdoms and provinces.* In 
whatever islands or states the Portuguese or Spanish power 
does prevail, or has prevailed, most of the inhabitants, and in 
some, all of them have been converted to the Catholic faith. 
The whole population of the Philippine Islands, consisting of 
two millions of souls, is all Catholic. The diocese of Goa con- 
tains 400,000 Catholics. In short, the number of Catholics is 
so great throughout all the peninsula of India within the Gan- 
ges, notwithstanding the power and influence of Britain, as to 
excite the jealousy and complaints of the celebrated Protestant 
missionary, Dr. Buchanan. f In a late parliamentary record, 
it is stated, that in Travancor and Cochin is a Catholic arch- 
bishopric and two bishoprics, one of which contains 35,000 
communicants 4 There are numerous Catholic flocks, with their 
priests and even bishops, in all the kingdoms and states beyond 
the Ganges, particularly in Siam, Cochin-China, Tonquin, and 

* See Sir R. Steele's Account of the Catholic Religion throughout the 
world. 

t See Christian Researches in Asia, p. 131. Mem. Eccl. 
X Dr. Kerr's Letter, quoted in the late parliamentary report on the Catho. 
lie question, p. 487, 



CATHOLICITY. 



163 



the different provinces of the Chinese empire. I must add, on 
.his subject, that, whereas none of the great Protestant sects 
was ever much more numerous or widely spread than at pre- 
sent, the Catholic Church, heretofore, prevailed in all the coun- 
tries which they now separately inhabit. The same may be 
said of the Greek schismatics, and in a great measure of the 
Mahometans. It is in this point of view that the Right Rev. 
Dr. Marsh ought to institute his comparison between the 
Church of England and the Church of Rome ;* or rather, the 
Catholic Church, in communion with the See of Rome. In the 
mean time, we are assured by his fellow-prelate, the Bishop of 
Lincoln, that " The articles and liturgy of the Church of Eng- 
land do not correspond with the sentiments of the eminent re- 
formers on the Continent, or with the creeds of any Protestant 
churches there established."! And with respect to this very 
church, nothing can be more inconsistent, than to ascribe the 
greater part of the population of our two islands to it. For if 
the Irish Catholics, the Scotch Presbyterians, the English 
Methodists and other dissenters, together with the vast popula- 
tion who neither are, nor profess to be, of any religion at all, 
are subtracted, to what a comparatively small number will the 
Church of England be reduced ! And, how utterly absurd 
would it be in her to pretend to be the Catholic Church / Nor 
are these the only subtractions to be made from her numbers, 
and indeed from those of all other Christian societies, divided 
from the true church ; since there being but one baptism, all the 
young children who have been baptized in them, and all invin- 
cibly ignorant Christians, who exteriorly adhere to them, really 
belong to the Catholic Church, as I have elsewhere shown. 

In finishing this subject, I shall quote a passage from St. Au- 
gustin, which is as applicable to the sectaries of this age as it 
was to those of the age in which he wrote : " There are here- 
tics everywhere, but not the same heretics everywhere. For 
there is one sort in Africa, another sort in the East, a third sort 
:n Egypt, and a fourth sort in Mesopotamia, being different in 
different countries, though all produced by the same mother, 
namely, pride. Thus also the faithful are all born of one 
common mother, the Catholic Church; and though they are 
everywhere dispersed, they are everywhere the same."! 

But it. is still more necessary that the true church should be 
Catholic or universal, as to time, than as to numbers or to place. 
If there ever was a period since her foundation, in which she 
has failed, by teaching or promoting error or vice, then the pro- 



* See his Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome, 
t Dr. Tomline's Charge in 1803, % Lib. de Pact, c, 8. 



164 



LETTER XXVI. 



mises of the Almighty in favor of the seed of David and ie 
kingdom of the Messiah, in the Book of Psalms,* and in kiose 
of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel, have failed ;f then the more 
explicit promises of Christ, concerning this church and her pas- 
tors, have failed ;\ then the creed itself, which is the subject 
of our present discussion, has been false. § — On this point 
learned Protestants have been wonderfully embarrassed, and 
have involved themselves in the most palpable contradictions. 
A great proportion of them have maintained that the church, in 
past ages, totally failed, and became the synagogue of Satan, 
and that its head pastor, the Bishop of Rome, was and is the 
man of sin, the identical antichrist : but they have never been 
able to settle among themselves, when this, the most remarkable 
of all revolutions which have happened since the world began, 
actually took place ; or who were the authors, and who the 
opposers of it ; or by what strange means these authors pre- 
vailed on so many millions of people of different nations, lan- 
guages, and interests, throughout Christendom, to give up the 
supposed pure religion, which they had learned from their fa- 
thers, and to embrace a new and false system, which its adver- 
saries now call Popery! In a word, there is no way of account- 
ing for the pretended change of religion, at whatever period 
this may be fixed, but by supposing, as I have said, that the 
whole collection of Christians, on some one night went to bed 
Protestants, and awoke the next morning papists. 

That the church in communion with the See of Rome is the 
original, as well as the most numerous church, is evident in 
several points of view. The stone cries out of the wall, as the 
prophet expresses it,|| in testimony of this. I mean that our 
venerable cathedrals and other stone churches, built by Catho- 
lic hands and for the Catholic worship, so as to resist, in some 
sort, that which is now performed in them, proclaim that ours 
is the ancient and original church. This is still more clear 
from the ecclesiastical historians of our own as well as other 
nations. Venerable Bede, in particular, bears witnesslf that 
the Roman missionary, St. Augustin of Canterbury, and his 
companions, converted our Saxon ancestors, at the end of the 
sixth century to the belief of the pope's supremacy, transub- 
stantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, purgatory, the invocation 
of saints, and the other Catholic doctrines and practices; as 
learned Protestants in general agree.** Now, as these mission- 

* Ps. Ixxxviii. alias lxxxix. &c. 

t Isaiah, c. liv. lix. Jerem. xxxi. 31. Dan. ii. 44. 

t Matt. xv. 13. — xxviii. 19, 20. § I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. 

ilHabak.ii.il. IF Hist. Eccles. 

** Bishop Bale, Dr. Humphreys, the Centur, of Magdeb. &c« 



CATHOLICITY. 



165 



aries were found to be of the same faith and religion, not only 
with the Irish, Pints, and Scots, who were converted almost two 
centuries before them, but also with the Britons or Welsh, who 
became Christians in the second century, so as only to differ 
from them about the time of keeping Easter, and a few other un- 
essential points, this circumstance alone proves the Catholic reli- 
gion to have been that of the church at that early age. Still, 
the most demonstrative proofs of the antiquity and originality of 
our religion, are gathered from comparing it with that contained 
in the works of the ancient fathers. An attempt was made, 
during a certain period, by some eminent Protestants, especially 
in this country, to press the fathers into their service. Among 
these, Bishop Jewel of Sarum was the most conspicuous. He 
not only boasted that those venerable witnesses of the primitive 
doctrine were generally on his side, but also published the fol- 
lowing challenge to the Catholics : " Let them show me one 
only father, one doctor, one sentence, two lines, and the field is 
theirs."* However, this his vain boasting, or rather deliberate 
impugning the known truth, only served to scandalize sober 
and learned Protestants, and among others his biographer, Dr. 
Humphreys, who complains that he thereby " gave a scope to 
the papists, and spoiled himself and the Protestant Church. "f 
In fact, this hypocrisy, joined with his shameful falsifications of 
the fathers, in quoting them, occasioned the conversion of a ben- 
eficed clergyman, and one of the ablest writers of his age, Dr. 
W. Reynolds. "J Most Protestant writers of later times§ fol- 
low the late Dr. Middleton, and Luther himself • in giving up 
the ancient fathers to the Catholics without reserve, and thereby 
the faith of the Christian church during the six first centuries, 
of which faith these fathers were the witnesses and teachers. 
Among other passages to this purpose, the above-named doctor 
writes as follows : " Every one must see what a resemblance 
the principles and practice of the fourth century bear to the 
present rites of the Popish church. "|| Thus, by the confession of 
her most learned adversaries, our church is not less CATHO- 
LIC or universal, as to time, than she is with respect to name^ 
locality, and numbers. 

I am, &c. 

John Milner. 

* See Jewel's Sermon at St. Paul's Cross, likewise his Answers to Dr. 
Co'e. 

t L : fe of Jewel, quoted by Walsingham, in his invaluable Search into 
Mutters of Religion, p. 172. J: Dodd's Church Hist. vol. ii. 

§ See the acknowledgment on this head of the learned Protestants, 
Obrerchr, Doumoulin, and Casaubon. 

j| Inquiry into Miracles, Introd. p. 45. 



166 



LETTER XXVII* 



LETTER XXVIL— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ, &e» 
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 

Dear sir— 

I have received the letter written by your visiter the Rev. 
Joshua Clark, B. D., at the request, as he states, of certain 
members of your society, animadverting on my last to you ; an 
answer to which letter I, am requested to address to you. The 
reverend gentleman's arguments are by no means consistent 
one with another ; for like other determined controvertists, he 
attacks his adversary with every kind of weapon that comes to 
his hand, in the hope per fas et nefas of disabling him. He 
maintains, in the first place, that though Protestantism was not 
visible before it was unveiled by Luther, it subsisted in the 
hearts of the true faithful, ever since the days of the apostles, 
and that the believers in it constituted the real primitive Catho- 
lic Church.— To this groundless assumption I answer, that an 
invisible church is no church at all ; that the idea of such a 
church is at variance with the predictions of the prophets re- 
specting Jesus Christ's future church, where they describe it as 
a Mountain on the top of mountains, Is. ii. 2, Mich. iv. 2, and 
as a city, whose watchmen shall never hold their peace, Is. lxii. 
6, and, indeed, with the injunction of our Lord himself to tell 
the church, Matt, xviii. 17, in the case which he mentions. It 
is no less repugnant to the declaration of Luther, who says of 
himself, "At first I stood alone ;"* and to that of Calvin, who 
says, " The first Protestants were obliged to break off from the 
whole world ;"f as also to that of the Church of England in 
her homilies, where she says : " Laity and clergy ; learned 
and unlearned, all ages, sects, and degrees have been drowned 
in abominable idolatry, most detested by God and damnable to 
man, for 800 years and more. "J As to the argument in favor 
of an invisible church, drawn from 1 Kings, xix. 18, where 
the Almighty tells Elijah, " I have left me 7,000 in Israel, 
whose knees have not been bowed to Baal ;" our divines fail 
not to observe, that however invisible the church of the old law 
was in the schismatical kingdom of Israel, at the time here 
spoken of, it was most conspicuous and flourishing in its proper 
seat, the kingdom of Judah, under the pious King Josaphat. 
Mr. Clark's second argument is borrowed from Dr. Porteus, 
and consists in a mere quibble. In answer to the question : 
" Where was the Protestant religion before Luther?" this pre- 
late replies : " It was just where it is now: only that then it 



* Opera. Pref. 



t Epist, 171. 



t Peril of Idolatry, p. iii. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



was corrupted with many sinful errors, from which it is now 
reformed."* But this is to fall back into the refuted system of 
an invisible church and to contradict the homilies, or else it is 
to confess the real truth, that Protestancy had no existence be- 
fore the sixteenth century. 

The reverend gentleman next maintains, on quite opposite 
grounds, that there have been large and visible societies of Pro- 
testants, as he calls them, who have stood in opposition to the 
Church of Rome, in all past ages. — *True, there have been her- 
etics and schismatics of one kind or other during all that time, 
from Simon Magus down to Martin Luther; many sects of 
whom, such as the Arians, the Nestorians, the Eutychians, the 
Monotholites, the Albigenses, the Wickliffites, and the Hussites, 
have been exceedingly numerous and powerful in their turns, 
though most of them have now dwindled away to nothing : but 
observe, that none of the ancient heretics held the doctrines of 
any description of modern Protestants, and all of them main- 
tained doctjrines and practices which modern Protestants repro- 
bate, as much as Catholics do. Thus the Albigenses were real 
Manicheans, holding two first principles or deities, attributing 
the Old Testament, the propagation of the human species, to 
Satan, and acting up to these diabolical maxims. f The Wick- 
liffites and Hussites, were the levelling and sanguinary Jacobins 
of the times and countries in which they lived in other re- 
spects these two sects were Catholics, professing their belief in 
whe seven sacraments, the mass, the invocation of saints, purga- 
tory, &c. If, then, your reverend visiter is disposed to admit 
such company into his religious communion, merely because 
they protested against the supremacy of the pope, and some 
othei Catholic tenets, he must equally admit Jews, Mahome- 
tans, and pagans into it, and acknowledge them to be equally 
Protestants with himself. 

Your reverend visiter concludes his letter with a long disser- 
tation, in which he endeavors to show, that however we Catho- 
lics may boast of the antiquity and perpetuity of our church in 
past times, our triumphs must soon cease by the extinction of 
this church, in consequence of the persecution now carrying on 
against it in France, and other parts of the continent ;§ and 
also from the preponderance of the Protestant power in Europe, 
particularly that of our own country, which, he says, is nearly 
as much interested in the extirpation of Popery as of Jacobinism. 
My answer is this : I see and bewail the anti-catholic persecu- 
tion which has been, and is carried on in France and its de- 

* Confut. p. 79. * 
t See an account of them, and the authorities on which this rests, in 
Letters to a Prebendary, Letter IV. X Ibid. $ Namely, in 1803 



lea 



LETTER XXVIL 



pendent states, where to decathoJicize is the avowed order of the 
day. This was preceded by the less sanguinary, though equally 
anti-catholic persecution of the Emperor Joseph II., and his 
relatives in Germany and Italy. I hear the exultations and 
menaces on this score of the Wranghams, De Coetlogons, Tow- 
sons, Bichenos, Ketts, Fabers, Daubenys, and a crowd of othei 
declamatory preachers and writers, some of whom proclaim 
that the Romish Babylon is on the point of falling, and others 
that she is actually fallen. In the mean time., though more 
living branches of the mystical Vine should be cut off by the 
sword, and though more rotten branches should fall off, from 
their own decay,* I am not at all fearful for the life of the Tree 
itself, since the Divine veracity is pledged for its safety, as long 
as the sun and moon shall endure, (Psalm lxxxix.,) and since the 
experience of eighteen centuries has confirmed our faith in these 
divine promises. During this long interval, kingdoms and em- 
pires have risen and fallen, the inhabitants of every country 
have been repeatedly changed ; in short, every thing has 
changed except the doctrine and jurisdiction of the Catholic 
Church, which are precisely the same now that Christ and his 
apostles left them. In vain did pagan Rome, during three cen- 
turies, exert its force to drown her in her own blood ; in vain 
did Arianism and the other contemporary heresies sap her foun- 
dations during two centuries more ; in vain did hordes of bar- 
barians from the north, and of Mahometans from the south, rush 
forward to overwhelm her • in vain did Luther swear that he 

* Since the present letter was written, many circumstances have occurred 
to show the mistaken politics of cur rulers, in endeavoring to weaken and 
supplant the religion of their truly loyal and conscientious Catholic subjects. 
Among other measures for this purpose, may be mentioned the late instruc- 
tions sent to the Governor of Canada, which Catholic province alone re- 
mained faithful at the time of trial, when all the Protestant provinces abjured 
their allegiance. To the same intent may be cited the letter of Dr. Kerr, 
senior chaplain of Fort St. George, quoted in the late parliamentary report. 
By this it appears that the Catholics in that province generally converted 
about three hundred infidels to Christianity every year, and that there was a 
prospect of their converting many of the Hindoo chiefs, but that our govern- 
ment set its face against these conversions. Thus is the obscene and bar- 
barous worship of Juggernaut himself preferred to the religion which con- 
verted and civilized our ancestors. Juggernaut, as Dr. Buchanan informs us, 
is a huge idol, carved with the most obscene figures round it, and publicly 
worshipped before hundreds of thousands, with obscene songs and unnatural 
rites, too gross to be described. It is placed on a carriage, under the wheels 
of which great numbers of its votaries are encouraged to throw themselves, 
in order to be crushed to death by them. Now this infernal worship is not 
barely permitted, but even supported by our government in India, as it takes 
a tribute from each individual who is present at it, and likewise defrays the 
expense of it, to the amount, says Dr. Buchanan, of £8,700 annually, inclu- 
ding the keep of prostitutes, &c, 



APOSTOLICITY. 



169 



himself would be her death :* she has survived these, and nu- 
merous other enemies equally redoubtable ; and she will sur- 
vive even the fury and machinations of anti-christian philosophy, 
though directed against her exclusively, for not a drop of Pro- 
testant blood has been shed in this impious persecution. Nor 
is that church which, in a single kingdom, the very head-quar- 
ters of infidelity, could at once furnish 24,000 martyrs and 
60,000 voluntary exiles, in defence of her faith, so likely to sink 
under external violence, or internal weakness, as your reve- 
rend visiter supposes. Alluding to the then recent attempt of 
the Emperor Julian to falsify the prophecy of Daniel, by re- 
building the Jewish temple, St. John Chrysostom exclaimed : 
" Behold the temple of Jerusalem ; God has destroyed it : have 
men been able to restore it ? Behold the church of Christ ; 
God has built it : have men been able to destroy it ?" Should 
the Almighty permit such a persecution to befall any of the Pro- 
testant communions, as we have beheld raging against the Cath- 
olic Church on the continent, does your visiter really believe 
that its clergy and other members will exhibit the same con- 
stancy in suffering for their respective tenets, that our clergy 
and people have shown in defence of hers ? In fact, for what 
tenets should the former suffer exile and death, since, without 
persecution, they have all, in a manner, abandoned their origi- 
nal creeds, from the uncertainty of their rule of faith, and their 
own natural mutability % Human laws and premiums may 
preserve the exterior appearance, or mere carcass of a church, 
as one of your divines expresses it ; but while the pastors and 
doctors of it demonstrate by their publications, that they no 
longer maintain her fundamental articles, can we avoid sub- 
scribing to the opinion expressed by a late dignitary of it, that 
" the Church of England, properly so called, is not in exist- 
ence ?"f — I am, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XXVIII.—TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c. 

ON THE APSTOLICITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
Dear sir — 

The last of the four marks of the church, mentioned in our 
common creed, is Apostolicity. We each of us declare, in 
our solemn worship : I believe in One, Hoh, Catholic, and 
APOSTOLICAL Church. Christ's last commission to his 



* Luther ordered this epitaph to be engraved on his tomb : — Pest^s cram 
tivens, mariens ero mors tua, papa. t Confessional, p. 244. 

15 



170 



LETTEfi. XXVIIL 



apostles was this : Go leach all nations, baptizing them in the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : and, 7o ! I 
am nnth you always, even unto THE END OF THE WORLD. 
Matt, xxviii. 20. Now the event has proved, as I have already 
observed, that the apostles themselves were only to live the 
ordinary term of man's life ; therefore the commission of preach- 
ing and ministering, together with the promise of the Divine 
assistance, regards the successors of the apostles, no less than 
the apostles themselves. This proves that there must have 
been an uninterrupted series of such successors of the apostles 
in every age since their time ; that is to say, successors to their 
doctrine, to their jurisdiction, to their orders, and to their mission. 
Hence it follows, that no religious society whatever, which 
cannot trace its succession, in these four points, up to the apos- 
tles, has any claim to the characteristical title, APOSTOLI- 
CAL. 

Conformably with what is here laid down, we find the fathers 
and ecclesiastical doctors of every age, referring to this mark 
of apostolical succession, as demonstrative of their belonging to 
the true church of Christ. St. Ireneeus of Lyons, the disciple of 
St. Polycarp, who himself appears to have been consecrated by 
St. John the Evangelist, repeatedly urges this argument against 
his contemporary heretics. " We can count up," he says, 
"those who were appointed bishops in the churches by the 
apostles and their successors down to us, none of whom taught 
this doctrine. But as it would be tedious to enumerate the suc- 
cession of bishops in the different churches, we refer you to the 
tradition of that greatest, most ancient, and universally known 
church, founded at Rome by St. Peter and St. Paul, and which 
has been preserved there, through the succession of its bishops, 
down to the present time." He then recites the names of the 
several popes down to Eleutherius, who was then living.* Ter- 
tullian, who also flourished in the same century, argues in the 
same manner, and challenges certain heretics in these terms : 
" Let them produce the origin of their church ; let them display 
the succession of their bishops, so that the first of them may 
appear to have been ordained by an apostolic man, who perse- 
vered in their communion." He then gives a list of the pon- 
tiffs in the Roman See, and concludes as follows: "Let the 
heretics feign any thing like this."f The great St. Augustin, 
who wrote in the fifth century, among other motives of credi- 
bility in favor of the Catholic religion, mentions the one in ques- 
tion : "I am kept in this church," he says, ' ; by the succession 

* Lib. iii. advers. Haer. c. 3. 

t " Fingant tale aliquid bEeretiei." Prescript. 



A.t>OSTOLlCtTY. 



IT! 



of prelates from St. Peter, to whom the Lord ccf knitted the 
care of his sheep, down to the present bishop."* In like man- 
ner St. Optatus, writing against the Donatists, enumerates all 
the popes from St. Peter down to the then living pope, Siricius, 
" with whom," he says, " we and all the world are united in 
communion. Do you, Donatists, now give the history of your 
episcopal ministry. "f In fact, this mode of proving the Catho- 
lic Church to be apostolical, is conformable to common sense 
and constant usage. If a prince is desirous of showing his title 
to a throne, or a nobleman or gentleman his claim to an estate, 
he fails not to exhibit his genealogical table, and to trace his 
pedigree up to some personage whose right to it was unquestion- 
able. I shall adopt the same precise method on the present 
occasion, by sending your society a slight sketch of our apos- 
tolical tree, by which they will see, at a glance, an abridgment 
of the succession of our chief bishops in the Apostolical See of 
Rome, from St. Peter up to the present edifying pontiff, Pius 
VII., as likewise that of other illustrious doctors, prelates, and 
saints, who have defended the apostolical doctrine by their 
preaching and writings, or who have illustrated it by their lives. 
They will also see the fulfilment of Christ's injunction to the 
apostles and their successors, in the conversion of nations and 
people to his faith and church. Lastly, they will behold the 
unhappy series of heretics and schismatics, who, in different ages, 
have fallen off from the doctrine or communion of the Apostolic 
Church. But as it is impossible, in so narrow a compass as 
the present sheet, to give the names of all the popes, or to ex. 
hibit the other particulars here mentioned, in the distinct and 
detailed manner which the subject seems to require, I will try 
to supply the deficiency by the subjoined copious note.ij: 

* Contra Epist. Fundam. f Contra Parmen. lib. ii, 

t CENT. L 

Within the first century from the birth of Christ, this long expected Mes- 
siah founded the kingdom of his holy church in Judea, and chose his apostles 
to propagate it throughout the earth, over whom he appointed Simon, as the 
centre of union and head pastor, charging him to feed his whole flock, sheep 
as well as lambs, giving him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and chang. 
ing his name into that of PETER, or ROCK ; adding, On this rock I will 
build my church. Thus dignified, St. Peter first established his see at Anti 
och, the head city of Asia, whence he sent his disciple, St. Mark, to estab- 
lish and govern the See of Alexandria, the head city of Africa. He after- 
wards removed his own see to Rome, the capitol of Europe and the world. 
Here having, with St. Paul, sealed the gospel with his blood, he transmitted 
his prerogative to S'. Linus, from whom it descended in succession to St. 
Gletua and S r . Clement. Among the other illustrious doctors of this age are 
to be reckoned, first, the other apostles, then SS. Mark, Luke, Barnaby, 
Timothy, Titus, Hermas, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, and Polycarp, of 
Smyrna. From the few remaining writings of these may be gathered the 



LEftm XXV 111, 



I do not, dear sir, pretend to exhibit a history of the churcij, 
nor even a regular epitome of it, in the present note, any more 
than in the apostolical tree ; nevertheless, either of these will 
give you and your respectable society, a sufficient idea of the 

necessity of unity and submission to bishops tradition, the real presence, the 
sacrifice of the mass, veneration for relics, &.c. In this age churches were 
founded in the above-mentioned places, as also in Samaria, throughout Lesser 
Asia, in Armenia, India, Greece, Egypt, Ethiopia, Italy, Spain, and Gaul 
In this apostolical age, also, and, as it were, under the eyes of the apostles, 
different proud innovators pretended to reform the doctrine which the latter 
taught. Among these were Simon the magician, Hymeneus and Philetus, 
the incontinent Nicolaites, Cerinthus, Ebion, and Menander. 

CENT. II. 

The succession of chief pastors in the chair of Peter was kept up through 
this century by the following popes, who were also, for the most part, mar- 
tyrs: Anaeletus, Evaristus, Alexander I., Xystus I., Telesphorus, Hyginus, 
Pius I., AnicetuSj, Soter, Eleutherius, who sent Fugatius and Damianus to 
convert the Britons, and Victor I., who exerted his authority against certain 
Asiatic bishops, the Quarto-decimans, so called from their keeping Easter at 
an undue time. , The truth of Christianity was defended in this age, by the 
apologists Quadratus, Anstides, Melito, and Justin, the philosopher and mar- 
tyr; and the rising heresies of Valentinian, Marcian, and Carpocrates, were 
confounded by the bishops Dionysius of Corinth, and Theophylusof Antioch, 
in the East ; and by St. Irenseus and Tertullian in the West. In the mean 
time the Catholic Church was more widely spread, through Gaul, Germany, 
Scythia, Africa, and India, besides Britain. 

CENT. III. ~ 

The popes who presided over the church in the third age, were all emi- 
nent for their sanctity, and almost all of them became martyrs. Their names 
are Zephyrinus, Calixtus I., Urban I., Pontianus, Antherus, Fabian, Corne- 
lius, Lucius, Stephen I., Xystus II., Dionysius, Felix I., Eutychian, Caius, 
and Marcellinus. The most celebrated doctors of this age were St. Clement 
of Alexandria, Origen, and Minutius Felix ; St. Cyprian and Sr. Hypolhus, 
both martyrs ; and St. Gregory, surnamed for his miracles, Thaumaturgus, 
Bishop of Neocesarea. At this time, Arabia, the Belgic provinces, and many 
districts of Gaul were almost wholly converted ; whilst Paul of Samosata, 
for denying the divinity of Christ ; Sabellius, for impugning the distinction 
of persons in the B. Trinity ; and Novatus, for denying the power of the 
Church to remit sins ; with Manes, who believed in two Deities, were cut 
off as rotten branches from the apostolic tree. 

CENT. IV. 

St. Marcellus, the first pope in this century, died through the hardships of 
imprisonment for the faith. After him came Eusebius, Melchiades, Silves- 
ter, under whom the Councils of Aries, against the D >natist&, and of Nice, 
against the Arians, were held ; Marcus, Julius, in whose time the right of 
appeal to the Roman See was confirmed, Liberies and Dnmajus. The 
church, which hitherto had been generally persecuted by the Roman empe- 
rors, was, in this age, alternately protected and oppressed by them. In the 
mean time, her numbers were prodigiously increased by conversions through- 
out tho Roman empire, and also in Armenia, Iberia, and Abyssinia ; and bat 



APOSTOLICITY. % 173 

uninterrupted succession of supreme pastors, which has sub- 
sisted in the See of Rome from St. Peter, whom Christ made 
head of his church, up to the present pope, Pius VII. And this 
attribute of perpetual succession, you are, dear sir, to observe, 

faith was invincibly maintained by St. Athanasius, St. Hilary, St. Gregory 
Nazianzen, St. Basil, St. Ambrose of Milan, &c, against the Arians, who 
opposed the Divinity of Christ ; the Macedonians, who denied that of the 
Holy Ghost, the Arians, who impugned episcopacy, fasting, and prayers for 
the dead, and other new heretics and schismatics. 

CENT. V. 

During this age the perils and sufferings of the church were great ; but so 
also were the resources and victories by which her divine Founder supported 
her. On one hand, the Roman empire, that fourth great dynasty, compared 
by Daniel to iron, was broken to pieces by numerous hordes of Goths, Van- 
dals, Huns, Burgund-ians, Franks, and Saxons, who came pouring in upon 
the civilized world, and seemed to be on the point of overwhelming arts, 
sciences, laws, and religion, in one undistinguished ruin. On the other 
hand, various classes of powerful and subtle heretics strained every nerve to 
corrupt the apostolic doctrine, and to interrupt the course of the apostles' sue. 
cessors. Among these, the Nestorians denied the union of Christ's divine 
and human natures ; the Eutychians confounded them together; the Pela- 
gians contradicted the necessity of divine grace, and the followers of Vigilan- 
tius scoffed at celibacy, prayers to the saints, and veneration for their relics. 
Against those innovators, a train of illustrious pontiffs and holy fathers op- 
posed themselves, with invincible fortitude and decided success. The popes 
were Innocent I., Zosimus, Boniface I., Celestin L, who presided by his le- 
gates in the Council of Ephesus, Xystus III.", Leo the Great, who presided in 
that of Chalcedon, Hilarius, Simplicius, Felix III., Gelasius I., Anastasius 
EL, and Symmachus. Their zeal was well seconded by some of the bright- 
est ornaments of orthodoxy and litera' ire that ever illustrated the church; 
St. John Chrysostorn, St. Jerom, St. ^tugustin, St. Gregory of Nyssa, &c. 
By their means, and those of other apostolic Catholics, not only were the 
enemies of the church refuted, but also her bounds greatly enlarged by the 
conversion of the Franks, with their king, Clovis, and of the Scotch and the 
Irish. The apostle of the former was St. Palladius, and of the latter St. Pat- 
rick, both commissioned by the See of Rome. 

CENT. VI. 

The church had to combat with infidels, heretics, and worldly politicians, 
in this as in other ages ; but failed not to receive the accustomed proofs of 
the divine protection, amidst her dangers. The chief bishops succeeded 
each other in the following: order: Hormisdas, St. John L, who died a pris- 
oner for the faith, Felix IV., Boniface II., John II., Agapetus I., St. Silve- 
rius, who died in exile for the unity of the church, Vigilius, Pelagius I., John 
HI., Benedict J., Pelagius II. 5 and St. Gregory the Great, a name which 
ought to be engraved on the heart of every Englishman who knows how to 
value the benefits of Christianity, since it was he who first undertook to 
preach the gospel to our Saxon ancestors, and when he was prevented by 
force from doing this, sent his deputies, St. Augustin and his companions, on 
this apostolical errand. Other shining lights of this age were St. Fulgentius 
of Ruspa, Cesarius of Aries, Lupus, Germanus, Severus, Gregory of Tours, 
our venerable Gildas, and the great patriarch of the monks, St, Benedict, 

15* 



174 



LETTER XXVIII. 



is peculiar to the See of Rome : for in all the other churches 
founded by the apostles, as those of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alex- 
andria, Corinth, Ephesus, Smyrna, &c, owing to internal dis- 
sensions and external violence, the succession of their bishops 

The chief heretics who disturbed the peace of the church were the Asche- 
pali and the Jocobites, both branches of Eutychianism j the Tritheists, the 
powerful supporters of the Three Chapters, Severus, Eleurus, Mongus, An- 
thimus, and Acacius. A more terrible scourge than these, or than any other 
which the church had yet felt, God permitted in this age to fall upon her,, in 
the rapid progress of the impostor Mahomet. What, however, she lost in 
some quarters, was made up to her in others, by the suppression of Arianism 
among the Visigoths of Spain, and among the Ostrogoths of Italy, and by 
the conversion of the Lazes, Axumites, and Southern English. 

CENT. VII. 

The popes in this century are most of them honored for their sanctity ; 
namely, Sabinianus, Boniface III., Boniface IV., Deusdedit, Boniface V., 
Honorius I., Severinus, John IV., Theodorus, Martin I., who died in exile 
in defence of the faith, Eugenius I., Vitalianus, Domnus I., Agatho, who pre- 
sided by his legates in the sixth general council, held against the Mono;ho- 
lites, Leo II., Benedict II., John V. Conon, and Sergius I. Other contem- 
porary doctors and saints were St. Sophronius and St. John the Almoner, 
bishops ; and St. Maximus, martyr, in the East. SS. Isidore, Ildefonsus, 
and Eugenius, in Spain, SS. Amand, Eligius, Omer and Owen, in France, 
and SS. Paulinus, Wilfrid, Birinus, Felix, Chad, Aidan, and Cuthbert, in 
England. The East at this time was distracted by the Monotholite heretics, 
and, in some parts, by the Paulicians, who revived the detestable heresy of 
the Manicheans, but most of all by the sanguinary course of the Mahomet- 
ans, who overran the most fertile and civilized countries of Asia and Africa, 
and put a stop to the apostolical succession in the primitive sees of the East. 
To compensate for these losses, the church spread her roots wide in the 
northern regions. The whole heptarchy of England became Christian, and 
diffused the sweet odor of Christ throughout the West. Hence issued St 
Willibrord and Swibert, to convert Holland and Frizeland, and the two bro. 
thers of the name of Ewald, who confirmed their doctrine with their blood. 
The martyr St. Killian, who converted Franconia, was an Irishman ; but all 
these apostolic men received their commissions from the chair of St. Peter. 

CENT. VIII. 

The apostolic succession in the See of Rome was kept up in this age by 
John VI., John VII., Sisinnius, Constantine, Gregory II., Gregory III., 
Zacharias, Stephen II., Stephen III., Paul L, Adrian L, who presided by 
his legates in the seventh general council against the Iconoclasts, and Leo 
III. The Saracens now crossed the straits of Gibraltar and nearly overran 
Spain, making numerous martyrs, whilst Felix and Elipand broached errors 
in the West, nearly resembling those of Nestorius. The most signal de- 
fenders of the orthodox doctrine were St. Germanus, Patriarch, St. John 
Damascen, Paul the Deacon, Ven. Bede, St. Aldhelm, St. Willibald, Alcuin, 
St. Boniface, bishop and martyr, and St. Lullus. Most of these were Eng- 
lishmen, and by their means, Hessia, Thuringia, Saxony, and other provinces, 
were added to the Catholic Church. 

CENT. IX. 

The apostolic tree, in this age, was agitated by storms more violent thaa 



APOSTOLICITY . 



175 



has, at different times, been broken and confounded. .Hence 
the See of Rome is emphatically and for a double reason called 
the APOSTOLICAL SEE ; and being the head see and the 
centre of union to the whole Catholic Church, furnishes the first 

usual ; but, being refreshed with the dew of grace from above, held fast by- 
its roots. Claudius of Turin united in one system the heresies of Nestorius, 
Vigilantius, and the Iconoclasts, while Gotescale labored to infect the churcn 
with predestinarianism. A more severe blow to her, however, was the Greek 
schism, occasioned by the resentment and ambition of the hypocrite Photius. 
But the greatest danger of all arose from the overbearing power of the anti- 
christian Musselmans, who now carried their arms into Sicily, France, and 
Italy, and became masters, for a time, of the holy see itself. The succession 
of its bishops, however, continued uninterrupted in the following order: Ste- 
phen V., Paschal I., Eugenius II., Valentine, Gregory IV., Sergius II., Leo 
IV., Benedict III., Nicholas I., Adrian II., who presided by his legates in 
the eighth general council, John VIII., Marinus, Adrian III., Stephen VI., 
Formosas, Stephen VII., and Romanus. — Other props of the church, in this 
age, were Theodore the Studite, St. Ignatius, the legitimate Patriarch of 
Constantinople, Rabanus, Hincmar, and Agobard, French bishops, together 
with our countrymen, St. Swithin, Neot, Grimbald, Alfred, and Edmund. 
In this age St. Ansgarius converted the people of Holstein, and SS. Cyril 
and Methodius the Sclavonians, Moravians, and Bohemians, by virtue of a 
commission from Pope Adrian II. 

CENT. X. 

The several popes during this century were Theodore II., John IX., Bene- 
diet IV., Leo V., Christopher, Sergius III., Anastasius, Lando, John X., Leo 
VI., Stephen VIII., John XL, Leo VII., Stephen IX., Martin II., Agapetus 
II., John XII., Benedict V., John XIIL, Benedict VI., Domnus II., Bene, 
diet VII., John XIV., John XV., and Gregory V. This age is generally 
considered as the least enlightened by piety and literature of the whole num- 
ber. Its greatest disgrace, however, arose from the misconduct of several 
of the above-mentioned pontiffs, owing to the prevalence of civil factions at 
Rome, which obstructed the freedom of canonical election : yet in this list 
of names there are ten or twelve which do honor to the papal calendar, and 
even those who disgraced it by their lives, performed their public duty, in 
preserving -the faith and unity of the church, irreproachably. In the mean 
time a crowd of holy bishops and other saints, worthy the age of the apostles, 
adorned most parts of the church, which continued to be augmented by nu- 
merous conversions. In Italy, SS. Peter, Damian, Romuald, Nilus, and 
Rathier, Bishop of Verona, adorned the church with their sanctity and talents, 
as did the holy prelates, Ulric, Wolfgang, and Bruno, in Germany, and Odo, 
Dunstan, Oswald, and Ethelvvold, in England. At this time, St. Adalbert, 
Bishop of Prague, converted the Poles by his preaching and his blood ; the 
Danes were converted by St. Poppo, the Swedes by St. Sigifrid, an English- 
man, the people of Lesser Russia by SS. Bruno and Boniface, and the Mus- 
covites by missionaries sent from Greece, but at a time when that country 
was in communion with the See of Rome. 

CENT. XL 

During this age the vessel of Peter was steered by several able and vir- 
tuous pontiffs. Silvester II. was esteemed a prodigy of learning and talents. 
After him came John XVIIL, John XIX., Sergius IV., Benedict VIII., John 
XX. S Benedict IX., Gregory VI., Clement II. f Damasus IL, Leo IX., who 



176 



LETTER XXVIII. 



claim to its title of THE APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. But 
you also see, in the sketch of this mystical tree, an uninterrupted 
series of other bishops, doctors, pastors, saints, and pious per- 
sonages, of different times and countries, through these eighteen 

has deservedly been reckoned among the saints, Victor II., Stephen X., 
Nicholas II., Alexander II., Gregory VII., who is also canonized, with Vic- 
tor III., and Urban II. Other defenders of virtue and religion, in this age, 
were St. Elphege and Lanfranc, Archbishops of Canterbury, the prelates Bur- 
card of Worms, Fulbert and Ivo of Chartres, Odilo, an abbot, Algar, a monk, 
Guitmund and Theophylactus. The crown, also, was now adorned with 
saints, equally signal for their virtue and orthodoxy. In England shone St. 
Edward the Confessor; in Scotland, St. Margaret; in Germany, St. Henry, 
emperor ; in Hungary, St. Stephen. The cloister was also now enriched 
with the Cistercian Order, by St. Robert, with the Carthusian Order, by St. 
Bruno, and with the Order of Val-ombrosa, by St. John Gualbert. While 
on one hand a great branch of the apostolic tree was lopped off, by the 
second defection of the Greek Church, and some rotten boughs were cut off 
from it in the new Manicheans, who had found their way from Bulgaria into 
France, as likewise in the followers of the innovator Berengarius, it received 
fresh strength and increase from the conversion of the Hungarians, and of 
the Normans and Danes, who before had desolated England, France, an(* 
the two Sicilies. 

CENT. XII. 

In this century heresy revived with fresh vigor, and in a variety of forms 
though chiefly of the Manichean family. Mahometanism also again threat 
ened to overwhelm Christianity. To oppose these, the Almighty was pleased 
to raise up a succession of as able and virtuous popes as ever graced the tiara, 
with a proportionable number of other Catholic champions to defend its 
cause. These were Paschal II., Gelasius II., Calixtus II., Honorius II., In- 
nocent II., who held the second general council of Lateran, Celestin II., 
Lucius II., Eugenius III., Anastasius IV., Adrian IV., an Englishman, Alex- 
ander III., who held the third Lateran council, Lucius III., Urban III., 
Gregory VIII., Clement III., and Celestine III. The doctors of note were, 
in the first place, the mellifluous Bernard, a saint, however, who was not 
more powerful in word than in work ; likewise the Venerable Peter, Abbot 
of Clugni, St. Anslem and St. Thomas, Archbishops of Canterbury, Peter 
Lombard, Master of the Sentences, St. Otto, Bishop of Bamberg, St. Nor- 
bert of Magdeburg, St. Henry of Upsal, St. Malachy of Armagh, St. Hugh 
of Lincoln, and St. William of York. The chief heresies alluded to, were 
those propagated by Marsilius of Padua, Arnold of Brescia, Henry of Thou- 
louse, Tranchelm, Peter Bruise, the Waldenses, or disciples of Peter Waldo, 
and the Bogomilians, Patarini, Cathari, Puritans, and Albigenses, all the lat- 
ter being different sects of Manicheans. To make up for the loss of these, 
the church was increased by the conversion of the Norwegians and Livoni- 
ans, chiefly through the labors of the above-named Adrian IV., then an apos- 
tolic missionary, called Nicholas Breakspear. Courland was converted by 
St. Meinard, and even Iceland was engrafted in the apostolic tree by the 
labors of the Catholic missionaries. 

CENT. XII. 

The successors of St. Peter in this age were innocent III., who held the 
fourth Lateran council, at which 412 bishops, 800 abbots, and ambassadors 
from most of the Christian sovereigns, were present, for the extinction of the 



1F0ST0LICITY. 



177 



centuries, who have, in their several stations, kept up the per- 
petual succession : those of one century having been the in- 
structors of those who succeeded them in the next : all of them 
following the same two-fold rule of Scripture and tradition ; all 

impious and infamous Albigensian or Manichean heresy. Honorious III., 
Gregory IX., Celestin IV., Innocent IV., who held the first general council 
of Lyons, Alexander IV., Urban IV., Gregory X., who held the second coun- 
cil of Lyons, in which the Greeks renounced their schism, though they soon 
fell back into it, Innocent V., Adrian V., John XXL, Nicholas III., Martin 
IV., Honorius IV., Nicholas IV., Celestin V., who abdicated the pontificate, 
and was afterwards canonized, and Boniface VIII. The most celebrated 
doctors of the church were St. Thomas of Aquin, St. Bonaveniure, St. An- 
tony of Padua, and St. Raymund of Pennaforr. Other illustrious support- 
ers and ornaments of the church were, St, Lewis, King of France, Sr. Eliza- 
beth, Queen of Hungary, St. Hedwige of Poland, St. Francis of Assisium, 
St. Dominic, St. Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Thomas of Here- 
ford, and St. Richard of Chichester. The chief heretics were the Beguardi 
and Fratricelli, whose gross immoralities Mosheim himself confesses. In the 
mean time Spain was, in a great measure, recovered to the Catholic Church 
from the Mahometan impiety ; Courland, Gothland, and Estonia, were con- 
verted by Baldwin, a zealous missionary ; the Cumani, near the mouths of 
the Danube, were received into the church, and several tribes of Tartars, 
with one of their emperors, were converted by the Franciscan missionaries, 
whom the pope sent among them, not, however, without the martyrdom of 
many- of them. 

CENT. XIV. 

Still did the promise of Christ, In the preservation of his church, contrary 
to all opposition, and beyond the term of all human institutions, continue to 
be verified. The following were the head pastors who successively presided 
over it : Benedict XL, Clement V., who held the general council of Vienna, 
John XXII., Clement VI., Innocent VI., Urban V., Gregory XL, Urban VI., 
and Boniface IX. Among the chief ornaments of the church in this age, 
may be reckoned St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal, St. Bridget of Sweden, 
Count Elzear, and his spouse Delphina, St. Nicholas of Tolentino, St. Cath- 
arine of Sienna, John Rusbrock, Peter, Bishop of Autun, &c. The Mani- 
chean abominations maintained and practised by the Turlupins, Dulcinians, 
and other sects, continued to exercise the vigilance and zeal of the Catholic 
pastors; and the Lollards of Germany, together with the Wickliffites of 
England, whose errors and conduct were levelled at the foundations of socie- 
ty, as well as of religion, were opposed by all true Catholics in their re- 
spective stations. The chief conquests of the church in this century, were 
Lithuania, the prince and people of which received her faith, and in Great 
Tartary, where the archbishopric of Cambalu and six suffragan bishoprics 
were established by the pope. Odoric, the missionary, who furnished the 
account of these events, is known himself to have baptized 20,000 converts. 

CENT. XV. 

The succession of popes continued through this century, though among 
numerous difficulties and dissensions, in the following order : — Innocent 
VII., Gregory XII., Alexander V., John XXIIL, Martin V., Eugenius IV., 
who held the general council of Florence, and received the Greeks once 
more into the Catholic communion, Nicholas V., Calixtus III., Pius II., 
Paul II., Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII., and Alexander VI. In this age flour. 



178 



LETTER XXVIII. 



of them acknowledging the same expositor of this rule, the 
Catholic Church ; and all of them adhering to the main trunk 
or centre of union, the apostolical see. Some of the general 
councils or synods likewise appear, in which the bishops from 

ished St. Vincent Ferrer, the wonder-worker, both in the order of grace and 
in that of nature, St. Francis of Paula, whose miracles were not less nume- 
rous or extraordinary, St. Laurence Justinian, Patriarch of Venice, St. An- 
tonius, Archbishop of Florence, St. Casimir, Prince of Poland, the venera- 
ble Thomas a, Kempis, Dr. John Gerson, Thomas Waldensis, the learned 
English Carmelite, Alphonsus Tostatus, Cardinal Ximenes, &c. At thif 
period, the Canary Islands were added to the church, as were, in a grea' 
measure, the kingdoms of Congou and Angola, with other large districts ir. 
Africa and Asia, wherever the Portuguese established themselves. The 
Greek schismatics also, as I have said, together with the Armenians and 
Monotholites of Egypt, were, for a time, engrafted on the apostolic tree. 
These conquests, however, were damped by the errors and violence of the 
various sects of Hussites, and the immoral tenets and practices of the Adam- 
ites and other remnants of the Albigenses. 

CENT. XVI. 

This century was distinguished by that furious storm from the North, 
which stripped the apostolic tree of so many leaves and branches in this 
quarter. That arrogant monk, Martin Luther, vowed destruction to the tree 
itself, and engaged to plant one of those separated branches instead of it ; 
but the attempt was fruitless; for the main stock was sustained by the arm 
of Omnipotence, and the dissevered boughs splitting into numberless frag- 
ments, withered as all such boughs had heretofore done. It would be im- 
possible to number up all these discordant sects ; the chief of them were, 
the Lutherans, the Zuinglians, the Anabaptists, the Calvinists, the Angli- 
cans, the Puritans, the Family of Love, and the Socinians. In the mean 
time, on the trunk of the apostolic tree grew the following pontiffs : — Pius 
III., Julius II., who held the fifth Lateran council, Leo X., Adrian VL, 
Clement VIII., Paul II., Julius III., Marcellus II., Paul IV., Pius IV., who 
concluded the council of Trent, where 281 prelates condemned the novelties 
of Luther, Calvin, &c, St. Pius V., Gregory XIII., SixtuTV., Urban VIL, 
Gregory XIV., Innocent IX., and Clement VIII. Other supporters of the 
Catholic and Apostolic Church against the attacks made upon her, were 
I Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Sir Thomas More, Chancellor of England ; 
Cuthbert Maine, and some hundreds more of priests and religious, who were 
martyred under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth in this cause ; also the Cardinals 
Pole, Hosius, Cajetan, and Allen ; with the writers Eckius, Cochleus, Eras- 
mus, Campion, Parsons, Stapleton, &c, together with that constellation of 
great saints which then appeared, SS. Charles Borromeo, Cajetan, Philip 
Neii, Ignatius, F. Xaverius, F. Borgia, Teresa, &c. In short, the damages 
sustained from the northern storm were amply repaid to the church, by in- 
numerable conversions in the new eastern and western worlds. It is com- 
puted that St. Xaverius alone preached the faith in fifty-two kingdoms or 
independent states, and baptized a million of converts with his own hand 
in India and Japan. St. Lewis Bertrand, Martin of Valentia, and Bartholo- 
mew Las Casas, with their fellow-missionaries, converted most of the Mexi- 
cans, and great progress was made in the conversion of the Brazilians, 
though not without the blood of many martyred preachers in these and the 
other Catholic missions. David, Emperor of Abyssinia, with many of hia 



APOSTOLICITY. 



179 



different parts of the church assembled from time to time, under 
the authority of the pope, to define its doctrine and regulate its 
discipline. The size of the sheet was insufficient to exhibit all 
the various councils. Again, you behold in this tree, the con- 
family and other subjects, was now reclaimed to the church, and Pulika, 
Patriarch of the Nestorians in Assyria, came to Rome, in order to join the 
numerous churches under him to the centre of unity and truth. 

CENT. XVII. 

The sects of which I have been speaking, were, at the beginning of this 
century, in their full vigor ; and though they differed in most other respects, 
yet they combined their forces, under the general name of Protestants, to 
overthrow Christ's everlasting church. These attempts, however, like the 
waves of the troubled ocean, were dashed to pieces against the rock on 
which he had built it. On the contrary, they weakened themselves by civil 
wars and fresh divisions. The Lutherans split into Diaphorists and Abia- 
phorists, the Galvinists into Gomarists and Arminians, and the Anglicans 
into Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, and Quakers. A vain 
effort was now set on foot, through Cyril Lucaris, to gain over the Greek 
churches to Calvinism, which ended in demonstrating their inviolable attach- 
ment to all the controverted doctrines of Catholicity. Another more fatal 
attempt, was made to infect several members of the church itself with the 
distinguishing error of Calvinism, under the name of Jansenism. But the 
successors of St. Peter continued, through the whole of this century, equally 
to make head against Protestant innovations, Jansenistical rigor, and casuisti- 
cal laxity. Their names, in order, were these : Leo XL, Paul V., Gregory 
XV., Urban VIII., Innocent X , Alexander VII., Clement IX., Clement. X., 
Innocent XI., Alexander VIII., and Innocent XII. Their- orthodoxy was 
powerfully supported by the Cardinals Bellarmin, Baronius, and Perron, 
with the Bishops Huetius, Bossuet, Fenelon, Richard Smith, and the divines 
Petavius, Tillemont, Pagi, Thomassin, Kellison, Cressy, &c. Nor were the 
canonized saints of this age fewer in number or less illustrious than those of 
the former, namely, St. Francis of Sales, St. Frances Chantal, St. Camillus, 
St. Fidelis, martyr, St. Vincent of Paul, &c. Finally, the church continued 
to be crowned with fresh converts, in Peru, Chili, Terra Firma, Canada, 
Louisiana, Mingrelia, Tartary, India, and many islands both of Africa and 
Asia. She had also the consolation of receiving into her communion the 
several patriarchs of 'Damascus, Aleppo, and Alexandria, and also the Nes- 
torian Archbishops of Chaldasa, and Meliapore, with their respective clergy. 

CENT. XVIII. 

At length we have mounted up the apostolic tree to our own age. In it, 
heresy having sunk for the most part into Socinian indifference, and Jansen- 
ism into philosophic infidelity ; this last waged as cruel a war against the 
Catholic Church, (and, glorious mark of truth ! against her alone,) as De- 
cius and Dioclesian did heretofore ; but this has only proved her internal 
fctreng;h of constitution, and the protection of the God of heaven. The 
pontiffs who stood the storms of this century, were Clement XL, Inno- 
cent XIII., Benedict XIII., Clement XII., Benedict XIV., Clement XIII., 
Clement XIV., Pius VI., as at the beginning of the present century, 
Pius VII. has done. Among other modern supporters and ornaments 
of the church, may be mentioned the Cardinals Thomasi and Quirini, 
the Bishops Languet, La Motte, Beaumont, Challoner, Iiornyhold, Walmee- 



180 



LETTER XXVm. 



tinuation of the apostolical work, the conversion of nations ; 
which, as it was. committed by Christ to the Catholic Church, so 
it has never been blessed by him with success in any hands but 
in hers. This exclusive miracle, in the order of grace, like 
those in the order of nature, which I treated of in a former let- 
ter, is itself a divine attestation in her behalf. Speaking of 
the conversion of nations, I must not fail, dear sir, to remind 
your society, that this our country has twice been reclaimed 
from paganism, and each time by the apostolic labor of mis- 
sionaries, sent hither by the See of Rome. The first conver- 
sion took place in the second century, when Pope Eleutherius 
sent Fugatius and Duvianus for this purpose to the ancient 
Britons, or Welsh, under their king or governor, Lucius : as 
Bede and other historians relate. The second conversion was 
that of our immediate ancestors, the English Saxons and Angles, 
by St. Augustin and his companions, at the end of the sixth cen- 
tury, who were sent from Rome, on this apostolical errand, by 
Pope Gregory the Great. Lastly, you see in the present 
sketch, a series of unhappy children of the church, who, instead 
of hearing her doctrines, as it was their duty to do, have pre- 
tended to reform them ; and thus losing the vital influx of their 
parent stock, have withered and fallen off from it as dead 
branches. 

I am, &c. 

John Milner. 

ley, Hay and Moylan. Among the writers are Calmet, Muratori, Ber- 
gier, Feller, Gother, Manning, Hawarden, and Alban Butler ; and among 
the personages distinguished by their piety, the Good Dauphin, his sis- 
ter Louisa, the Carmelite nun, his heroical daughter Elizabeth, his other 
daughter Clotilde, whose beatification is now in progress, as are those of 
Bishop Lignori, and Paul of the Cross, founder of the Passionists ; as also 
FF. Surenne, Nolhac, and L'Enfant, with their fellow-martyrs, and the Ven- 
erable Labre, &c. Nor has the apostolical work of converting infidels been 
neglected by the Catholic Church in the midst of such persecutions. In the 
early part of this century, numberless souls were gained by Catholic preachers 
in the kingdoms of Madura, Cochin-China, Tonquin, and in the empire of 
China, including the peninsula of Corea. At the same time numerous sav- 
ages were civilized and baptized among the Hurons, Miamis, Illinois, and 
other tribes of North America. But the most glorious conquest, because the 
most difficult and most complete, was that gained by the Jesuits in the inte- 
rior of South America over the wild savages of Paraguay, Uraguay, and 
Parona, together with the wild Canisians, Moxos, and Chiquites, who, after 
shedding the blood of some hundreds of their first preachers, at length opened 
their hearts to the mild and sweet truths of the gospel, and became models 
of piety and morality, nor less so of industry, civil order, and polity. 



AP0ST0LIC1TY. 



181 



LETTER XXIX. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. 

ON THE APOSTOLICITY OF THE CATHOLIC 
MINISTRY. 

Dear sir — 

In viewing the apostolical tree, you are to consider it as repre- 
senting an uninterrupted succession of pontiffs and prelates, 
who derive, not barely their doctrine, but also, and in a special 
manner, their ministry, namely their holy orders, and the right 
or jurisdiction to exercise those orders, in a right line from the 
apostles of Jesus Christ. In fact, the Catholic Church, in all 
past ages, has not been more jealous of the sacred deposit of 
orthodox doctrine, than of the equally sacred deposits of legiti- 
mate ordination, by bishops who themselves had been rightly 
ordained and consecrated, and of valid jurisdiction or divine 
mission, by which she authorizes her ministers to exercise their 
respective functions in such and such places, with respect to 
such and such persons, and under such and such conditions, as 
she, by the depositaries of this jurisdiction, is pleased to ordain. 
Thus, my dear sir, every Catholic pastor is authorized and en- 
abled to address his flock as follows : — The word of God which 
I announce to you, and the holy sacraments ivhich I dispense to 
you, I am QUALIFIED to announce and dispense by such a 
Catholic bishop who was consecrated by such another Catholic 
bishop, and so on, in a series which reaches to the apostles them- 
selves : and I am AUTHORIZED to preach and minister to you 
by such a prelate, who received authority for this purpose, from the 
successor of St. Peter in the apostolic See of Rome. Heretofore, 
during a considerable time, the learned and conscientious di- 
vines of the Church of England held the same principles, on 
both these points, that Catholics have ever held, and were no 
iess firm in maintaining the divine right of episcopacy and the 
ministry than we are. This appears from the works of one 
who was, perhaps, the most profound and accurate amongst them, 
the celebrated Hooker. He proves, at great length, that the ec- 
clesiastical ministry fs a divine function, instituted by God, and 
deriving its authority from God, " in a very different manner 
from that of princes and magistrates :" that it is " a wretched 
blindness not to admire so great a power as that which the 
clergy are endowed with, or to suppose that any but God can 
bestow it;" that "it consists in a power over the mystical body 
of Christ, by the remission of sins, and over his natural body in 
the sacrament, which antiquity doth call the making of Christ's 
body."* He distinguishes between the power of orders and the 

* Ecclesiast. Politic. B. v. Art. 77. 
16 



182 



LETTER XXIX. 



authority of mission or jurisdiction, on both which points he is 
supported by the canons and laws of the Establishment. Not 
to speak of prior laws, the act of uniformity* provides that no 
minister shall hold any living, or officiate in any church, who 
has not received episcopal ordination. It also requires that he 
shall be approved and licensed for his particular place and func- 
tion. This is also clear from the form of induction of a clerk 
into any cure."j" In virtue of this system, when episcopacy was 
re-established in Scotland, in the year 1662, four Presbyterian 
ministers, having been appointed by the king to that office, the 
English bishops refused to consecrate them, unless they con- 
sented to be previously ordained deacons and priests ; thus re- 
nouncing their former ministerial character, and acknowledging 
that they had hitherto been mere laymen. 1 In like manner, on 
the accession of King William, who was a Dutch Calvinist, to 
the throne, when a commission of ten bishops and twenty divines 
was appointed to modify the articles and liturgy of the Estab- 
lished Church, for the purpose of forming a coalition with the 
dissenters, it appeared that the most lax among them, such as 
Tillotson and Burnet, together with Chief Baron Hales, and 
other lay lords, required that the dissenting ministers should, at 
least, be conditionally ordained,^ as being, thus far, mere lay- 
men. In a word, it is well known to be the practice of the 
Established Church, at the present day, to ordain all dissenting 
Protestant ministers of every description, who go over to her ; 
whereas, she never attempts to re-ordain an apostate Catholic 
priest who offers himself to her service, but is satisfied with his 
taking the oaths prescribed by law.|| This doctrine of the 
Establishment, evidently unchurches (as Dr. Heylin expresses 
•it) all other Protestant communions, as it is an established prin- 

* Stat. 13 and 14 Car. II., c. 4. 

t " Curam et regimen animsrum parochianorum tibi committimus." 

t Collier's Eccl. Hist. Vol. ii. p. 887. It appears from the same history 
that four other Scotch ministers, who had formerly permitted themselves to 
be consecrated bishops, were, on that account, excommunicated and de- 
graded by the kirk. Records, N. cxiii. 

§ Life of Tillotson, by D. Birch, pp. 42, 176. 

|| Notwithstanding these proofs of the doctrine and practice of the Estab- 
lished Church, a great proportion of her modern divines consent, at the pres- 
ent day, to sacrifice all her pretensions to divine authority and uninterrupted 
succession. It has been shown in The Letters to a Prebendary, that in the 
principles of the celebrated Dr. Balguy, a priest or bishop can as well be 
made by the town-crier, if commissioned by the civil power, as by the me- 
tropolitan. To this system, Dr. St urges, Dr. Hey, Dr. Paley, Dr. Tomline, 
and a crowd of other learned theologians subscribe their names. Even the 
Bishop of Lincoln, in maintaining episcopacy to be an apostolical institution, 
denies it to be binding on Christians to adopt it ; which, in fact, is to reduce 
it to a mere civil and optional practice. Elera. Vol. ii. Art. 23. 



APosTOLicrrr. 



183 



ciple, that, no ministry, no church ;* and with equal evidence, it 
unchristians them also ; since this church unanimously resolved, 
in 1575, that baptism cannot be performed by any person but a 
lawful minister. f 

But dismissing these uncertain and wavering opinions, we 
know what little account all other Protestants, except those of 
England, have made of apostolical succession and Episcopal 
ordination. Luther's principles on these points are clear from 
his famous bull against the FALSELY CALLED order of 
lishops-X where he says : " Give ear now, you bishops, or ra- 
ther you visors of the devil : Dr. Luther will read you a bull 
and a reform, which will not sound sweet in your ears." Dr. 
Luther's bull and reform is this : " Whoever spend their labor, 
persons, and fortunes, to lay waste your episcopacies, and to 
extinguish the government of bishops — they are the beloved of 
God, true Christians, and opposers of the devil's ordinances. 
On the other hand, whoever support the government of bishops, 
and' willingly obey them — they are the devil's ministers," &c. 
True it is, that afterwards, namely, in 1542, this arch-reformer, 
to gratify his chief patron, the Elector of. Saxony, took upon 
himself to consecrate his bottle-companion, Amsdorf, Bishop of 
Naumburgh :§ but then it is notorious from the whole of his 
conduct, that Luther set himself above all law, and derided all 
consistency and decency. Nearly the same may be said of an- 
other later reformer, John Wesley, who, professing himself to 
be a presbyter of the Church of England, pretended to ordain 
Messrs. Whatcoat, Vesey, &c. priests., and to consecrate Dr. 
Coke, a bishop !\\ With equal inconsistency the elders of Hern- 
huth, in Moravia, profess to consecrate bishops for England and 
other kingdoms. On the other hand, how averse the Calvinists 
and other dissenters are, to the very name, as well as the office 
of bishops, all modern histories, especially those of England 
and Scotland, demonstrate. But, in short, by whatever name, 
whether of bishops, priests, deacons, or pastors, these ministers 
respectively call themselves, it is undeniable, that they are all 
self appointed, or, at most, they derive their claim from other 
men, who themselves were self-appointed, fifteen, sixteen, or 
seventeen hundred years subsequent to the time of the apostles. 
The chief question which remains to be discussed, concerns 

* " Ubi nullus est sacerdos nulla est ecclesia." St. Jerom, &c. 
t Elem. of Theol. Vol. ii. p. 471. 
X Adversus falso Normin. Tom. ii. Jen. A. D. 1525. 
§ Sleidan, Comment. L. 14. 

|| Dr. Whitehead's Life of Charles and John Wesley. It appears that 
Charles was horribly scandalized at this step of his brother John, and that a 
lasting schism among the Wesleyan Methodists was the consequence of it. 



184 



LETTER X2£I3r. 



the ministry of the Church of England ; namely, whether the 
first Protestant bishops appointed by Queen Elizabeth, when the 
Catholic bishops were turned out of their sees, did or did not re- 
ceive valid consecration from some other bishop, who himself 
was validly consecrated ? The discussion of this question has 
filled many volumes, the result of which is, that the orders are, 
to say the least, exceedingly doubtful. For, first, it is certain 
that the doctrine of the fathers of this church was very loose, 
as to the necessity of consecration and ordination. Its chief 
founder, Cranmer, solemnly subscribed his name to the position, 
that princes and governors, no less than bishops, can make 
priests, and that no consecration is appointed by Scripture to 
make a bishop or priest.* In like manner, Barlow, on the va- 
lidity of whose consecration that of Matthew Parker and of all 
succeeding Anglican bishops chiefly rests, preached openly that 
the king's appointment, without any orders or ordination what- 
soever, suffices to make a bishop. f This doctrine seems to 
have been broached by him, to meet the objection that he him- 
self had never been consecrated : in fact, the record of such a 
transaction has been hunted for in vain, during these 200 years. 
Secondly, it is evident from the books of controversy still ex- 
tant, that the Catholic doctors, Harding, Bristow, Stapleton, and 
Cardinal Allen, who had been fellow-students, and intimately 
acquainted with the first Protestant bishops, under Elizabeth, 
and particularly with Jewel, Bishop of Sarum, and Horne, 
Bishop of Winton, constantly reproached them, in the most 
pointed terms, that they never had been consecrated at all ; 
and that they in their voluminous replies, never accepted of the 
challenge or refuted the charge, otherwise than by ridiculing 
the Catholic consecration. Thirdly, it appears that after an 
interval of fifty years from the beginning of the controversy, 
namely in the year 1613, when Mason, chaplain to Archbishop 
Abbot, published a work, referring to an alleged register at 
Lambeth, of Archbishop Parker's consecration by Barlow, as- 
sisted by Coverdale and others, the learned Catholics univer- 
sally exclaimed that the register was a forgery, unheard of till 
that date ; and asserted among other arguments, that, admitting 
it to be true, it was of no avail, as the pretended consecrator of 
Parker, though he had sat in several sees, had not himself been 
consecrated for any of them. f 

* Burnet's Hist, of Reform. Records, B. iii. N. 21. See also his Rec. 
Part ii. N. 2, by which it appears that Cranmer and the other complying 
prelates, on the death of Henry VIII. , took out fresh commissions from Ed- 
ward VI., to govern their dioceses, durante bene placito, like mere civil 
officers. || Collier's Eccl. Hist. vol. ii., p. 135. 

$ Richardson in his notes on Goodwin's Commentary is forced to confess 
as follows : " Dies consecrationis ejus (Barlow) nondurn apparet," P, 642. 



APOSTOLICITY. 



1S5 



These, however, are not the only exceptions which Catholic 
divines have taken to the ministerial orders of the Church of 
England. They have argued, in particular, against the form 
of them, as theologians term it. In fact, according to the or- 
dinal of Edward VI., restored by Elizabeth, priests were or- 
darned by the power of forgiving sins* without any power of 
offering up sacrifice, in which the essence of the sacerdotium. or 
priesthood consists; and, according to the same ordinal, bishops 
were consecrated without the communication of any fresh power 
whatsoever, or even the mention of episcopacy, by a form 
which might be used to a child, when confirmed or baptized. f 
This was agreeable to the maxims of the principal author of 
that ordinal, Cranmer, who solemnly decided that "bishops and 
priests were not two things, but one and the same office.":}: On 
this subject our cOntrovertists urge, not only the authority of all 
the Latin and Greek ordinals, but also the confession of the 
above-mentioned Protestant divine, Mason, who says, with evi- 
dent truth, " Not every form of words will serve for this stitu- 
tion, (conveying orders,) but such as are significant of the 
power conveyed by the order. "§ In short, these objections 
were so powerfully urged by our divines, Dr. Champney, J. 
Lewgar, S. T. B.,|| and others, that almost immediately after 
the last named had published his work called Erastus Senior, 
in 1662, containing them ; the convocation, being assembled, 
altered the form of ordaining priests and consecrating bishops in 
order to obviate these objections. % But admitting that these 
alterations are sufficient to obviate all the objections of our di- 
vines" to the ordinal, which they are not, they came above a 
hundred years too late for their intended purpose ; so that if 

* " Receive the Holy Ghost : whose sins thou dost forgive, they are for- 
given ; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained : and be thou a 
faithful dispenser of the word of God, and of his holy sacraments." — Bishop 
Sparrow's Collection, p. 158'. 

t " Take the Holy Ghost, and remember that thou stir up the grace of 
God, which is in thee by the imposition of hands." — Ibid. p. 164. 

X Burnet's Hist, of Reform, vol. i. Record, B. hi. n. 21, quest. 10. 

§ Ibid. B. ii. c. 16. 

|| Lewgar was the friend of Chillingworth, and by him converted to the 
Catholic faith, which, however, he refused to abandon when the latter re- 
lapsed into ladtudinarianism. 

IT The form of ordaining a priest was thus altered : " Receive the Holy 
Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the Church of God, now com- 
mitted to thee by the imposition of our hands : Whose sins thou shalt for- 
give, they are forgiven," &c. — The form of consecrating a bishop was thus 
enlarged : " Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a bishop 
m the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our 
hands, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost i 
and remember, that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee," 

16* 



186 



LETTER XXIX. 



the priests and bishops of Edward's and Elizabeth's reigns 
were invalidly ordained and consecrated, so must those of 
Charles the Second's reign, and their successors, have been also. 

However long I have dwelt on this subject, it is not yet ex- 
hausted. The case is, there is the same necessity of an apos- 
tolical succession of mission, or authority to execute the func- 
tions of holy orders, as of the holy orders themselves. This 
mission, or authority, was imparted by Christ to his apostles^ 
when he said to them : "As the Father hath sent me, I also 
send you," John xx. 21 ; and of this St. Paul also speaks, 
where he says of the apostles : " How can they preach, unless 
they are sent?" Rom. x. 15. I believe, sir, that no regular 
Protestant church, or society, admits its ministers to have, by 
their ordination or appointment, unlimited authority in every 
place and congregation. Certain it is, from the ordinal and 
articles of the Established Church, that she confines the juris- 
diction of her ministers to " the congregation to which they 
shall be appointed."* Conformably to this, Dr. Berkley 
teaches, that " a defect in the mission of the ministry, invalid- 
ates the sacraments, affects the purity of public worship, and 
therefore deserves to be investigated by every sincere Chris- 
tian. ""(• To this Archdeacon Daubeny adds, that " regular 
mission only subsists in the churches which have preserved 
apostolical succession." — I moreover believe, that in all Pro- 
testant societies the ministers are persuaded, that the authority 
by which they preach and perform their functions is, in some 
manner or other, divine. But, on this head, I must observe to 
you, dear sir, and your society, that there are only two ways, 
by which divine mission or authority can be communicated ; 
the one ordinary, 'the other extraordinary. The former takes 
place, when this authority is transmitted in regular succession 
from those who originally received il from God ; the other, 
when the Almighty interposes, in an extraordinary manner, and 
immediately commissions certain individuals to make known 
his will to men. The latter mode evidently requires indisputa- 
ble miracles to attest it : and accordingly, Moses and our 
Saviour Christ, who were sent in this manner, constantly ap- 
pealed to the prodigies they wrought in proof of their divine 
mission. Hence even Luther, when Muncer, Storck, and their 
followers, the Anabaptists, spread their errors and devastations 
through lower Germany, counselled the magistrates to put these 
questions to them, (not reflecting that the questions were as ap- 
plicable to himself as to Muncer and Storck,) " Who conferred 

* Article 23. Form of ordaining priests and deacons, 
t Serm. at Consecr. of Bishop Home, 



APOSTOLICITY. 



187 



upon you the office of preaching ? And who commissioned you 
to preach ? If they answer God ; then let the magistrates 
say : Prove this to us by some evident miracle : for so God 
makes known his will, when he changes the institutions which 
he had before established."* Should this advice of the first 
reformer to the magistrates be followed in this age and country, 
what swarms of sermonizers and expounders of the Bible would 
be reduced to silence ! For, on one hand, it is notorious, that 
they are self-appointed prophets, who run without being sent ; 
or, if they pretend to a commission, that they derive it from 
other men, who themselves had received none, and who did not 
so much as claim any, by regular succession from the apostles. 
Such was Luther himself; such also were Zuinglius, Calvin, 
Muncer, Menno, John Knox, George Fox, Zinzendorf, Wesley, 
Whitfield, and Swedenborg. None of these preachers, as I 
have signified, so much as pretended to have received their 
mission from Christ in the ordinary way, by uninterrupted suc- 
cession from the apostles. On the other hand, they were so far 
from undertaking to work real miracles, by way of proving that 
they had received an extraordinary mission from God, that, as 
Erasmus reproached them, they could not so much as cure a 
lame horse, in proof of their divine legation. 

Should your friend, the Rev. Mr. Clark, see this letter, he 
will doubtless exclaim, that, whatever may be the case with 
dissenters, the Church of England, at least, has received her 
mission and authority, together with her orders, by regular suc- 
cession from the apostles, through the Catholic bishops, in the 
ordinary way. — In fact, this is plainly asserted by the Bishop 
of Lincoln. f — But take notice, dear sir, that though we were to 
admit of an apostolical succession of orders in the Established 
Church, we never could admit of an apostolical succession of 
mission, jurisdiction, or right to exercise those orders in that 
church : nor can its clergy, with any consistency, lay the least 
claim to it. For, first, if the Catholic Church, that is to say, 
its " laity and clergy, all sects and degrees, were drowned in 
abominable idolatry, most detested of God and damnable to 
man, for the space of eight hundred years," as the homilies af- 
firm,:}: how could she retain this divine mission and jurisdiction 
all this time, and all this time employ them in commissioning 
her clergy to preach up this " abominable idolatry V Again, 
was it possible for the Catholic Church to give jurisdiction and 
authority, to Archbishop Parker, for example, and the Bishops 
Jewel and Horne, to preach against herself ? Did ever any in- 

* Sleidan. De Stat. Relig. !. v. t Elem. of Theol. vol. ii. p. 400, 

X Against the Perils of Idolatry, p. iii. 



188 



LETTER XXIX. 



surgents against an established government, except the regicides 
in the grand rebellion, claim authority from that very govern- 
ment to fight against it, and destroy it ? In a word, we perfectly 
well know, from history, that the first English Protestants did 
not profess, any more than foreign Protestants, to derive any 
mission or authority whatsoever from the apostles, through the 
existing Catholic Church. Those of Henry's reign preached 
and ministered in defiance of all authority, ecclesiastical and 
civil.* Their successors in the reign of Edward and Elizabeth 
claimed their whole right and mission to preach and to minister, 
from the civil power only.f This latter point is demonstratively 
evident from the act and the oath of supremacy, and from the 
homage of the archbishops and bishops to the said Elizabeth ; 
in which the prelate elect " acknowledges and confesses, that 
he holds his bishopric, as well in spirituals as in temporals, from 
her alone and the crown royal." The same thing is clear from 
a series of royal ordinances respecting the clergy, in matters 
purely spiritual, such as the pronouncing on doctrine, the prohi- 
bition of prophesying, the inhibition of all preaching, the giving 
and suspending of spiritual faculties, &c. Now, though I sin- 
cerely and cheerfully ascribe to my sovereign all the temporal 
and civil power, jurisdiction, rights, and authority, which the 
constitution and laws ascribe to him, I cannot believe that Christ 
appointed any temporal prince to feed his mystical flock, or any 
part of it, or to exercise the power of the keys of the kingdom of 
heaven at his discretion. It was foretold by Bishop Fisher in 
Parliament, that the royal ecclesiastical supremacy, if once ac- 
knowledged, might pass to a child or a woraan|, as, in fact, it 
soon did to each of them. It was afterwards transferred, with 
the crown itself, to a foreign Calvinist, and might have been 
settled, by a lay assembly, on a Mahometan. All, however, 
that is necessary for me here to remark is, that the acknow- 
ledgment of a royal ecclesiastical supremacy " in all spiritual 
and ecclesiastical things or causes, "§ (as when the question is, 
who shall preach, baptize, &c, and who shall not ; what is 
sound doctrine, and what is not,) is decidedly a renunciation of 
Christ's commission given to his apostles, and preserved by their 
successors in the Catholic Apostolic Church. — Hence it clearly 

* Collier's Hist. vol. ii. p. 81. 

t In the reign of James L, Archbishop Abbot having incurred suspension 
by the canon law, for accidentally shooting a man, a royal commission was 
issued to restore him. On another occasion, he was suspended by the king 
himself, for refusing to license a book. In Elizabeth's reign, the bishops ap- 
proved of prophesying, as it was called ; the queen disapproved of it, and 
ehe obliged them to condemn it. 

X See his Life by Dr. Bailey ; also Dodd's Eccles. Hist. vol. i. 

$ Oath of Supremacy, Homage of Bishops, &p ? 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



m 



appears, that there is, and can be, no apostolical succession of 
ministry in the Established Church, more than in the other con- 
gregations or societies of Protestants. All their preaching and 
ministering, in their several degrees, is performed by mere hu- 
man authority.* On the other hand, not a sermon is preached, 
nor a child baptized, nor a penitent absolved, nor a priest or- 
dained, nor a bishop consecrated, throughout the whole extent 
of the Catholic Church, without the minister of such function 
being able to show his authority from Christ for what he does, 
in the commission of Christ to his apostles: "All power in 
heaven and on earth is given to me : go therefore, teach all na- 
tions, baptizing them, 5 ' &c, Matt, xxviii. 19 ; and without his 
being able to prove his claim to that commission of Christ, by 
producing the table of his uninterrupted succession from the 
apostles. — I will not detain you by entering into a comparison, 
in a religious point of view, between a ministry which officiates 
by divine authority, and others which act by mere human authori- 
ty ; but shall conclude this subject by putting it to the good 
sense and candor of your society, whether, from all that has 
been said, it is not as evident, which among the different com- 
munions is THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH we profess to be* 
lieve in, as which is THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ? 

I am, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XXX.— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. 
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 

Dear sir — 

I find that your visiter, the Rev. Mr. Clark, had not left you 
at the latter end of last week ; since it appears, by a letter 

hich I have received from him, that he had seen my two last 
letters, addressed to you at New Cottage. He is much dis- 
pleased with their contents, which I am not surprised at ; and 
he uses some harsh expressions against them and their author, 
of which I do not complain, as he was not a party to the agree- 
ment, entered into at the beginning of our correspondence, by the 
enor of which I was left at full liberty to follow up my argu- 

. nts to whatever lengths they might conduct me, without in- 

ifrring the displeasure of any person of the society on that ac- 

* It : 3 curious to see in Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions, and in the 37th 
rtide, tiie disclaimer of her u actually ministering the word and the sacra- 
ents." The question was not about this, but about the jurisdiction or mw- 
wn of the ministry. 



l&O 



LETTER XXX» 



count. I shall pass over the passages in the letter which seem 
to have been dictated by too warm a feeling, and shall confine 
my answer to those which contain something like argument 
against what I have advanced. 

The reverend gentleman, then, objects against the claim of 
our pontiffs to the apostolic succession ; that in different ages 
this succession has been interrupted by the contentions of rival 
popes ; and that the lives of many of them have been so crimi- 
nal, that, according to my own argument, as he says, it is in- 
credible that such pontiffs should have been able to preserve 
and convey the commission and authority given by Christ to his 
apostles. I grant, sir, that, from the various commotions and 
accidents to which all sublunary things are subject, there have 
been several vacancies or interregnums in the papacy ; but 
none of them have been of such a lengthened duration as to 
prevent a moral continuation of the popedom, or to hinder the 
execution of the important offices annexed to it. I grant, also, 
that there have been rival popes and unhappy schisms in the 
church, particularly one great schism, at the end of the four- 
teenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century ; still the true 
pope was always clearly discernible at the times we are speak- 
ing of, and in the end was acknowledged even by his opponents. 
Lastly, I grant that a few of the popes, perhaps a tenth part of 
the whole number, fwerving from the example of the rest, have, 
by their personal vices, disgraced their holy station : but even 
these popes always fulfilled their public duties to the church, by 
maintaining the apostolical doctrine, moral as well as specula- 
tive, the apostolical orders, and the apostolical mission ; so that 
their misconduct chiefly injured their own souls, and did not 
essentially affect the church. But if what the homilies affirm 
were true, that the whole church had been " drowned in idola- 
try for eight hundred years," she must have taught and com- 
missioned all those whom she ordained, to teach this horrible 
apostacy ; which she never could have done, and at the same 
time have retained Christ's commission and authority to teach 
all nations the Gospel. This demonstrates the inconsistency of 
those clergymen of the Establishment, who accuse the Catholic 
Church of apostacy and idolatry, and at the same time boast of 
having received, through her, a spiritual jurisdiction and minis- 
try from Jesus Christ. 

Your visiter next expatiates, in triumphant strains, on the ex- 
ploded fable of Pope Joan ; for exploded it certainly may be 
termed, when such men as the Calvinist minister Blondel, and 
the infidel Bayle, have abandoned and refuted it. But the cir- 
cumstances of the fable themselves sufficiently refute it. Ac- 
cording to these, in the middle of the ninth century, an English 



§ 



OBJECTIONS ANSWEBJHB. 



101 



woman, born at Mentz in Germany* 'studied philosophy at 
Athens, (where there was no school of philosophy in the ninth 
century more than there is now,) and taught divinity at Rome. 
It is pretended that, being elected pope, on the death of Leo IV., 
in 855, she was delivered of a child, as she was walking in a 
solemn procession near the Coliseum, and died on the spot ; and, 
moreover, that a statue of her was there erected in memory of 
the disgraceful event ! There have been great debates among 
the learned, concerning the first author of this absurd tale, and 
concerning the interpolations in the copies of the first chronicles 
which mention it.f At all events, it was never heard of for 
more than two hundred years after the period at which it is said 
to have taken place. And, in the mean time, we are assured, 
from the genuine works of contemporary writers and distinguish- 
ed prelates, some of whom then resided at Rome, such as Anas- 
tasius the Librarian, Luitprand, Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, 
Photius of Constantinople, Lupus Ferrar, &c, that Benedict III. 
was canonically elected pope in the said year 855, only three 
days after the death of Leo IV., which evidently leaves no in- 
terval for the pontificate of the fabulous Joan. 

From the warfare of attack, my reverend antagonist passes 
to that of defence, as he terms it. In this he heavily complains 
of my not having done justice to the Protestants, particularly in 
the article of foreign missions. On this head, he enumerates 
the different societies, existing in this country, for carrying them 
on, and the large sums of money which they annually raise for 
this purpose. The societies, I learn from him, are the follow- 
ing : 1st, The society for promoting Christian knowledge, called 
the Bartlett's-Buildings Society : which, though strictly of the 
Establishment, employs missionaries in India to the number of 
six, all Germans, and it should seem, all Lutherans. 2dly, 
There is the Society for propagating Christianity in the English 
colonies; but I hear nothing of its doings. 3dly, There is 
another for the conversion of negro slaves, of which I can only 
say, ditto. 4thly, There is another for sending missionaries to 
Africa and the East, concerning which we are equally left in 
the dark. 5thly, There is the London Missionary Society, 
which sent out the ship Duff, with certain preachers and their 
wives, to Otaheite, Tongabatoo, and the Marquesas, and pub- 
lished a journal of the voyage, by which it appears that they 
are strict Calvinists and Independents. 6thly, the Edinburgh 
Missionary Society fraternizes with the last mentioned. Tthly, 
There is an Arminian Missionary Society, under Dr. Coke, the 

* Ifa Pseudo Martinus Polonus, &c. 

t See Breviarum His tori co — Chronologico — criticum Pontiff. Roman, stu. 
dio R. F, Pagi, torn. ii. p. 72. 



LETTER XXX. 



head of the Wesleyan Methodists. 8thly, There is a Moravian 
Missionary Society, which appears more active than any of the 
others, particularly at the Cape, and in Greenland and Surinam. 
To these, your visiter says, must be added, the Hibernian So- 
ciety for diffusing Christian knowledge in Ireland ; as also, and 
still more particularly, the Bible Society, with all its numerous 
ramifications. Of this last-named he speaks glorious things, 
foretelling that it will, in its progress, purify the world from in- 
fidelity and wickedness. 

In answer to what has been stated, I have to mention several 
marked differences between the Protestant and the Catholic 
missionaries. The former preach various discordant religions ; 
for what religions can be more opposite than the Calvinistic and 
the Arminian ? And how indignant would a churchman feel, 
if I were to charge him with the impiety and obscenity of Zin- 
zendorf and his Moravians ? The very preachers of the same 
sect, on board of the Duff, had not agreed upon the creed they 
were to teach, when they were within a few days sail of Ota- 
heite.* Whereas the Catholic missionaries, whether Italians, 
French, Portuguese, or Spaniards, taught and planted precisely 
the same religion in the opposite extremities of the globe. Se- 
condly, the envoys of those societies had no commission or au- 
thority to preach, but what they derived from the men and wo- 
men who contributed money to pay for their voyages and ac- 
commodations. I have not sent these prophets, says the Lord, 
yet they ran ; I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied, Jer. 
xxiii. 21. On the other hand, the apostolical men, who, in an- 
cient and in modern times, have converted the nations of the 
earth, all derived their mission and authority from the centre of 
the Apostolic Tree, the See of Peter. Thirdly, I cannot but 
remark the striking difference between the Protestant and the 
Catholic missionaries, with respect to their qualifications and 
method of proceeding. The former were, for the most part, 
mechanics and laymen of the lowest order, without any learning 
infused or acquired, beyond what they could pick up from the 
English translation of the Bible ; they were frequently encum- 
bered with wives and children, and armed with muskets and 
bayonets, to kill those whom they could not convert. f Whereas 

* " By the middle of January, the committee of eight (among the thirty 
missionaries) hod nearly finished the articles of faith. Two of the number 
dissented, but gave in." — Journal of the Duff. 

t The 18 preachers who remained at ah ite, " to up arms ly icay of 
precaution." — Ibid. It appears from subsequent accounts, that the preacher? 
made use of their arms, to protect their wives from the men whom they came 
to convert. Of the nine preachers destined for Tongabatoo, six were foi 
carrying fire-arms on shore, and three against it. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



193 



the Catholic missionaries have always been priests, or ascetics, 
trained to literature and religious exercises, men of continency 
and self-denial, who had no other defence than their breviary 
and crucifix, no other weapon than the sword of the spirit, which 
is the word of God. Ephes. vi. 17. Fourthly, I do not find 
any portion of that lively faith, and that heroic constancy, in 
braving poverty, torments, and death for the gospel, among the 
few Protestant converts, or even among their preachers, which 
have so frequently illustrated the different Catholic missions. 
Indeed I have not heard of a single martyr of any kind, in Asia, 
Africa, or America, who can be considered as the fruit of the 
above-named societies, or of any Protestant mission whatever. 
On the other hand, few are the countries in which the Christian 
religion has been planted by Catholic priests, without being 
watered by some of their own blood and of that of their con- 
verts. To say nothing of the martyrs of a late date in the Ca- 
tholic missions of Turkey, Abyssinia, Siam, Tonquin, Cochin- 
China, &c, there has been an almost continual persecution of 
the Catholics in the empire of China, for about a hundred years 
past, which, besides confessors of the faith, who have endured 
various tortures, has produced a very great number of martyrs, 
native Chinese as well as Europeans, laity as well as priests 
and bishops.* Within these two years,"]" the wonderful apostle 
of the great peninsula of Corea, to the east of China, James Ly, 
with as many as 100 of his converts, has suffered death for the 
faith. In the islands of Japan, the anti-christian persecution, 
excited by the envy and avarice of the Dutch, raged with a fury 
unexampled in the annals of pagan Rome. It began with the 
crucifixion of twenty-six martyrs, most of them missionaries. 
It then proceeded to other more horrible martyrdoms, and it 
concluded with putting to death as many as eleven hundred 
thousand Christians.^: Nor were those numerous and splendid 
victories of the gospel in the provinces of South America achiev- 
ed without torrents of Catholic blood. Many of the first preach- 
ers were slaughtered by the savages to whom they announced 
(he gospel, and not unfrequently devoured by them, as was the 
ease with the first Bishop of Brazil. — In the last place, the Pro- 
testant missions have never been attended with any great suc- 

* Hist, de l'Eglise, par Berault Bercastel, torn. 22, 23. Butler's Lives of 
he Saints, Feb. 5. M6m. Eccl€a. pourle 18me Sieele. 

t Namely, in 1801. While this work was in the press?, we received an ac- 
count of the martyrdom of Mgr. Dufresse, Bishop of Tabraca, and Vicar 
apostolic of Sutchuen, in China, who was beheaded there Sept. 14, 1815, 
end of F. J. de Frior, missionary in Chiensi, who, after varions torments, 
was strangled, Feb. 13, 1816. 

t Berault Bercastel s'ays two millions, torn. 20. 

17 



104 



LETTER XXX. 



cess. Those heretofore carried on by the Dutch, French, and 
American Calvinists, seem to have been more levelled at the 
destruction of the Catholic missions than at the conversion of 
the pagans.* In later times, the zealous Wesley went on a 
mission to convert the savages of Georgia, but returned with- 
out making one proselyte. His companion Whitfield afterwards 
went to the same country on the same errand, but returned 
without any greater success. Of the missionaries who went 
out in the Duff, those who were left at the Friendly Islands and 
the Marquesas, abandoned their posts in despair, as did eleven 
of the eighteen left at Otaheite. The remaining seven had not, 
in the course of six years, baptized a single islander. In the 
mean time, the depravity of the natives in killing their infants 
and other abominations, increased so fast, as to threaten their 
total extinction. In the Bengal government, extending over 
from 30 to 40 millions of people, with all its influence and en- 
couragement, not more than eighty converts have been made by 
the Protestant missionaries in seven years, and those were al- 
most all Chandalas, or outcasts from the Hindoo religion, who 
were glad to get a pittance for their support ;j* " for the perse- 
verance of several of whom," their instructors say, " they 
tremble. — How different a scene do the Catholic missions 
present ! To say nothing of ancient Christendom, all the king- 
doms and states of which were reclaimed from paganism, and 
converted to Christianity by Catholic preachers, and not one of 
them by preachers of any other description ; what extensive 
and populous islands, provinces, and states, in the east and in 
the west, were wholly, or in a great part, reclaimed from ido- 
latry, soon after Luther's revolt, by Catholic missionaries ! But 

* It is generally known, and not denied by Mosheim himself, that the ex- 
termination of the flourishing missions in Japan is to be ascribed to the Dutch. 
When they became masters of the Portuguese settlements in India, they en- 
deavored, by persecution as well as by other means, to make the Christian 
natives abandon the Catholic religion, to which St. Xaverius and his compan- 
ions had converted them. The Calvinist preachers having failed in their 
attempt to proselyte the Brazilians, it happened that one of their party, James 
Sourie, took a merchant vessel at sea with 40 Jesuit missionaries, under F. 
Azevedo, on board of it, bound to Brazil ; when, in hatred of them and their 
destination, he put them all to death. The year following, F. Diaz with 11 
companions, bound on the same mission, and falling into the hands of the 
Calvinists, met with the same fate. Incredible pains were taken by the mi- 
nisters of New England to induce the Hurons, Iroquois, and other converted 
savages, to abandon the Catholic religion, when the latter answered them : 
" You never preached the word to us while we were pagans ; and now that 
we are Christians you try to deprive us of it." 

t Extract of a Speech of C. Marsh, Esq., in a committee of the H. of C. t 
July 1, 1815. See also Major Waring's Remarks on Oxford Sermons. 

I Transact, of Frot. Miss, quoted in Edinb. Review, April, 1808. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 



195 



to come still nearer to our own time : F. Bouchet, alone, in the 
course of his twelve years' labors in Madura, instructed and 
baptised 20,000 Indians, while F. Britto, within fifteen months 
only, converted and regenerated 8.000, when he sealed his mis- 
sion with his blood. By the latest returns which I have seen, 
from the eastern missionaries to the directors of the French 
Missions- Efrangeres, it appears that in the western district of 
Tonquin, during the five years preceding the beginning of this 
century, 4,101 adults and 26,915 children were received into 
the church by baptism, and that in the lower part of Cochin- 
China 900 grown persons had been baptized in the course of 
two years, besides vast numbers of children. The empire of 
China contains six bishops and some hundreds of Catholic priests. 
In a single province of it, Sutchuen, during the year 1796, 
1,500 adults were baptized, and 2,527 catechumens were re- 
ceived for instruction. By letters of a later date from the 
above-mentioned martyr., Dufresse, Bishop of Tabraca, and 
Vicar Apostolic of Sutchuen, it appears, that during the year 
1810, in spite of a severe persecution, 965 adults were baptized ; 
and that during 1814, though the persecution increased, 829, 
without reckoning infants, received baptism. Bishop Lamote, 
Vicar Apostolic of Fokien, testifies that, in his district, during 
the year 1810, 10,384 infants and 1,677 grown persons were 
baptized, and 2,674 catechumens admitted. — From this short 
specimen, I trust, dear sir, it will appear manifest to you, on 
which Christian society God bestows his grace to execute the 
work of the apostles, as well as to preserve their doctrine, their 
orders, and their mission. 

As to the wonderful effects which your visiter expects in the 
conversion of the pagan world, from the Bible Society, and the 
three score and three translations into foreign tongues of the 
English translation of the Bible, I beg leave to ask him, who is 
to vouch to the Tartars, Turks, and idolaters, that the testa- 
ments and Bibles which the society is pouring in upon them, 
were inspired by the Creator ? Who is to answer for these 
translations, made by officers, merchants, and merchants' clerks, 
being accurate and faithful 1 Who is to teach these barbarians 
to read, and, after that, to make any thing like a connected 
sense of the mysterious volumes ? Does Mr. C. really think 
that an inhabitant of Otaheite, when he is enabled to read the 
Bible, will extract the sense of the 39 Articles, or of any other 
Christian system whatever from it ? In short, has the Bible 
Society, or any of the other Protestant societies, converted a 
single pagan or Mahometan by the bare text of Scripture? 
When such a convert can be produced, it will be time enough 
for me to propose to him those further gravelling questions, 



196 



LETTER XXX* 



which result from my observations on the sacred text in a for 
mer letter to you. In the mean time, let your visiter rest as 
sured that the Catholic Church will proceed in the old and sue 
cessfui manner, by which she has converted all the Christiai. 
people on the face of the earth ; the same which Christ deliv- 
ered to his apostles and their successors : " Go ye into all the 
world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Mark, xvi. 15c 
On the other hand, how illusory the gentleman's hopes are, ihal 
the depravity of this age and country will be reformed by the 
efforts of the Bible Society, has been victoriously proved by the 
Rev. Dr. Hook, who, with other clear-sighted churchmen,- evi- 
dently sees that the grand principle of Protestantism, strictly 
reduced to practice, would undermine their establishment. One 
of his brethren, the Rev. Mr. Gisborne, had publicly boasted 
that, in proportion to the opposition which the Bible Society had 
met with, its annual income had increased, till it reached near 
a £100,000 in a jea.r. Dr. Hook, in return, showed by lists 
of the convictions of criminals during the first seven years of 
the society's existence, that the wickedness of the country, in- 
stead of being diminished, had almost been doubled !* Since 
that period up to the present year, it has increased three-fold, 
and four- fold, compared with its state before the society began. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

I hate now, dear sir, completed the second task which I 
undertook, and therefore proceed to sum up my evidence. Hav- 
ing then proved in my twelve former letters, the rough copies 
of which I have preserved, that the two alleged rules of faith, 
that of private inspiration, and that of private interpretation of 
Scripture, are equally fallacious, and that there is no certain 
way of arriving at the truth of divine revelation, but by hearing 
that church which Christ luilt on a rock, and promised to abide 

* List of capital convictions in London and Middlesex in the following 
years, from Dr. Hook's charge and the London Chronicle : 



In the year 



Convictions 



1808 
~728 



1817 ' 
3177! 



1809ll810jl811jl812i 1813 | 18I4 |1815|18161 
~863|~884 1 ~872 1 ~998 j 1012 \ 1 027 1 2299 1 2592 j 

It appears, by a return made to the House of Commons, in obedience to 
their order, June 5, in the year 1818, that the number of criminals commit, 
ted for trial, and of those sentenced to death, during the last thirteen years, 
nearly corresponding with those of the Bible Society's progress, has been 
about tripled, namely : 

Committed for Trial. Sentenced to Death. 

In 1805 4,605. In 1805 350. 

In 1817 13,932, In 1817 1,302 



POSTSCRIPT. 



1P7 



with for ever, I engaged, in this my second series of letters, to 
demonstrate which, among the different societies of Christians, 
is the church that Christ founded and still protects. For this 
purpose I have had recourse to the principal characters or marks 
of Christ's church, as they are pointed out in Scripture, and 
formally acknowledged by Protestants of nearly all descriptions, 
no less than by Catholics, in their articles, and in those creeds 
which form part of their private prayers and public liturgy, 
namely, unity, sanctity, catholicity, and aposiolicity. In fact, 
this is what every one acknowledges who says, in the Apostles' 
Creed, I believe in the holy Catholic Church ; and in the Nicene 
Creed,* I believe one Catholic Apostolic Church. Treating 
of the first mark of the true church, I proved from natural rea- 
son, Scripture, and tradition, that unity is essential to her ; I 
then showed that there is no union or principle of union among 
the different sects of Protestants, except their common protesta- 
tion against their mother church ; and that the Church of Eng- 
land, in particular, is divided against, herself in such a manner, 
that one of its most learned prelates has declared himself afraid 
to say what is its doctrine. On the other hand, I have shown 
that the Catholic Church, spread as she is over the whole earth, 
is one and the same in her doctrine, in her liturgy, and in her 
government ; and, though I detest religious persecution, I have, 
in defiance of ridicule and clamor,' vindicated her unchangeable 
doctrine, and the plain dictate of reason as to the indispensable 
obligation of believing what God teaches ; in other words, of a 
right faith- I have even proved that her adherence to this tenet is 
a proof both of the truth and the charity of the Catholic Church. 
On the subject of holiness, I have made it clear, that the pre- 
tended Reformation everywhere originated in the pernicious 
doctrine of salvation by faith alone, without good works, and that 
the Catholic Church has ever taught the necessity of them both ; 
likewise that she possesses many peculiar means of sanctity, to 
which modern sects do not make a pretension ; likewise that 
she has, in every age, produced the genuine fruits of sanctity ; 
while the fruits of Protestantism have been quite of an opposite 
nature : finally, that God himself has borne witness to the sanc- 
tity of the Catholic Church, by undeniable miracles, with which 
he has illustrated her in every age. — It did not require much 
pains to prove that the Catholic Church possesses, exclusively, 
the name of CATHOLIC ; and not much more to demonstrate 
that she alone has the qualities signified by that name. That 
the Catholic Church is also APOSTOLICAL, by descending in 
a right line from the apostles of Christ, is as evident as that 



* See the Communion Service in Common Prayer- 
17* 



198 



POSTSCRIPT. 



she is Catholic. However, to illustrate this matter, I have 
sketched out a genealogical, or, as I call it, the apostolical 
tree, which, with the help of a note subjoined, shows the unin- 
terrupted succession of the Catholic Church in her chief pon- 
tiffs, and other illustrious prelates, doctors, and renowned saints, 
from the apostles of Christ, during eighteen centuries, to the 
present period, together with the continuation in her of the apos- 
tolical work of converting nations and people. It shows also a 
series of unhappy heretics and schismatics, of different times 
and countries, who, refusing to hear her inspired voice and to 
obey her divine authority, have been separated from her com- 
munion and have withered away, like branches cut off from a 
vine, which are fit for no human use. Ezek. xv. — Finally, 1 
have shown the necessity of an uninterrupted succession from 
the apostles, of holy orders and divine mission, to constitute an 
apostolical church ; and have proved that these, or at least the 
latter of them, can only be found in. the holy Catholic Church. — 
Having demonstrated all this in the foregoing letters, I am jus- 
tified, dear sir, in affirming that the motives of credibility, in fa- 
vor of the Christian religion in general, are not one whit more 
clear and certain, than those in favor of the Catholic religion 
in particular. But without inquiring into the degree of evidence 
attending the latter motives, it is enough for my present purpose 
that they are sufficiently evident to influence the conduct of dis- 
passionate and reasonable persons, who are acquainted with 
them, and who are really in earnest to save their souls. Now, 
in proof that these motives are, at least, so far clear, I may 
again appeal to the conduct of Catholics on a death-bed, who, 
in that awful situation, never wish to die in any religion but 
their own. I may also appeal to the conduct of many Protest- 
ants in the same situation, who seek to reconcile themselves to 
the Catholic Church. Let us, one and all, my dear sir, as far 
as in our power, adopt those sentiments in every respect now, 
which we shall entertain when the transitory scene of this world 
is closing to our sight, and during the countless ages of eter- 
nity. — O the length, the breadth, and the depth of the abyss of 
ETERNITY ! " No security," says a holy man, " can be too 
great where eternity is at slake."* 

I am, &c. 

John Milner. 

* " Nulla satis magna securitas ubi periclitatur eternitas." 



END OF PART II, 



THE 

END OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 



PART III. 



" It is a shame to charge men with what they are not guilty of, in order to 
make the breach wider, ahead}' too wide." — Dr. Montague, Bishop of Nor- 
wich. Invoc. of Saints, p. 60. 

" Let them not lead people by the nose to believe they can prove their sup- 
position, that the Pope is Antichrist, and the Papists idolaters, when they can- 
not." — Dr. Herbert Thorndyke, Prebendary of Westminster. Just Weights and 
Measures, p. 11 

" The object of their (the Catholics*) adoration of the blessed sacrament is 
the only true and eternal God, hypostatically joined with his holy humanity, 
which humanity they believe actually present under the veil of the sacramen- 
tal signs ; and if they thought him hot present, they are so far from worship- 
ping the bread in this case, that themselves profess it to be idolatry to do so."— - 
Dr. Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down. Liberty of Prophesying, chap. XX. 



ON RECTIFYING MISTAKES CONCERNING THE 
CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

LETTER XXXI. 
FROM JAMES BROWN, ESQ., TO THE RT. REV. JOHN MILNER. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Reverend sir — ■ 

The whole of your letters have again been read over in our 
society, and they have produced important, though diversified 
effects on the minds of its several members. For my own part, 
] am free to own that, as your former letters convinced me of 
tne truth of your rule of faith, namely, the entire word of God, 
and of the right of the true church to expound it in all ques- 
tions concerning its meaning ; so your subsequent letters have 
satisfied me, that the characters or marks of the true church, 
as they are laid down in our common creeds, are clearly visi- 
ble in the Roman Catholic Church, and not in the collection of 
Protestant churches, nor in any one of them. This impression 
was, at first, so strong upon my mind, that I could have an- 
swered you nearly in the words of King Agrippa to St. Paul ; 



200 



LETTER XXXII. 



Almost thou persuadest me to become a Catholic. Acts, xxvi. 28. 
The same appears to be the sentiments of several of my friends : 
but when, on comparing our notes together, we considered the 
heavy charges, particularly of superstition and idolatry, brought 
against your church by our eminent divines, and especially by 
the Bishop of London, (Dr. Porteus,) and never, that we have 
heard of, refuted or denied, we cannot but tread back the steps 
we have taken towards you, or rather stand still, where we are 
in suspense, till we hear what answer you will make to them, 
I speak of those contained in the bishop's well-known treatise, 
called A brief Confutation of the Errors of the Church of Borne. 
With respect to certain other members of our society, I am 
sorry to be obliged to say, that, on this particular subject, I 
mean the arguments in favor of your religion, they do not man- 
ifest the candor and good sense which are natural to them, and 
which they show on every other subject. They pronounce, 
with confidence and vehemence, that Dr. Porteus's charges are 
all true, and that you cannot make any rational answer to 
them ; at the same time that several of these gentlemen, to my 
knowledge, are very little acquainted with the substance of 
them. In short, they are apt to load your religion, and the pro 
fessors of it, with epithets and imputations too gross and in 
jurious for me to repeat, convinced as I am of their falsehood. 
I shall not be surprised to hear that some of these imputations 
have been transmitted to you by the persons in question, as I 
have declined making my letters the vehicle of them ; it is a 
justice, however, which I owe them to assure you, reverend 
sir, that it is only since they have understood the inference of 
your arguments to be such, as to imply an obligation on them 
of renouncing their own respective religions, and embracing 
yours, that they may have been so unreasonable and violent. 
Till this period, they appeared to be nearly as liberal and char- 
itable with respect to your cormmunion as to any other. 

I am, rev. sir, &c. 

James Brown. 



LETTER XXXII. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c. 

ON THE CHARGES AGAINST THE CATHOLIC 
CHURCH. 

Dear sir — 

I should be guilty of deception, were I to disguise the satis- 
faction I derived from your and your friends' near approach to 
the house of unity and peace, as St. Cyprian calls the CathoKo 



CHARGES AGAINST THE CHUKCH. 



201 



Church : for such I must judge your situation to be, from the 
tenor of your last letter : by which it seems to me, that your 
entire reconciliation with this church depends on my refuting 
Bishop Porteus's objections against it. And yet, dear sir, if I 
were to insist on the strict rules of reasoning, I might take oc- 
casion of complaining of you, from the very concessions which 
afford me so much pleasure. In fact, if you admit that the 
church of God, is, by his appointment, the interpreter of the 
entire word of God, you ought to pay attention to her doctrine 
on every pokit of it, and not to the suggestions of Dr. Porteus, 
or your own fancy, in opposition to it. Again, if you are con- 
vinced that the one holy. Catholic and Apostolical Church is the 
true church of God, you ought to be persuaded that it is utterly 
impossible that she should inculcate idolatry, superstition, or 
any other wickedness, and, of course, that those who believe 
her to be thus guilty, are, and must be, in a fatal error. I 
have proved from reason, tradition, and Holy Scripture, that, as 
individual Christians cannot of themselves judge with certainty 
of matters of faith, God has, therefore, provided them with an 
unerring guide, in his holy church ; and hence, that Catholics, 
as Tertullian and St. Vincent of Lerins emphatically pro- 
nounce, cannot strictly and consistently be required, by those 
who are not Catholics, to vindicate the particular tenets of their 
belief either from Scripture or any other authority : it being 
sufficient for them to show that they hold the doctrine of the 
true church, which all Christians are bound to hear. Never- 
theless, as it is my duty, after the example of the apostle, to 
become all things to all men, 1 Cor. ix. 22, and as we Catholics 
are conscious of being able to meet our opponents on their own 
ground, as well as on ours, I am willing, dear sir, for your sat- 
isfaction, and that of your friends, to enter on a brief discussion 
of the leading points of controversy, which are agitated between 
the Catholics and the Protestants, particularly those of the 
Church of England. I must, however, previously stipulate 
with you for the following conditions, which I trust you will 
find perfectly reasonable. 

1st. I require that Catholics should be permitted to lay down 
their own principles of belief and practice ; and, of course, to 
distinguish between their articles of faith, in which they must 
all agree, and mere scholastic opinions, of which every individ- 
ual may judge for himself; as, likewise, between the au- 
thorized liturgy and discipline of the church and the unauthorized 
devotions and practices of particular persons. I insist upon this 
preliminary, because it is the constant practice of your contro- 
versialists to dress up a hideous figure, composed of their own 
misrepresentations, or else of those undefined opinions and un- 



202 



LETTER XXXII. 



authorized practices, which they call Popery; and then to 
amuse their readers or hearers with exposing the deformity of 
it, and pulling it to pieces. And I have the greater right to 
insist upon this preliminary, because our creeds and professions 
of faith, the acts of our councils and our approved expositions 
and catechisms, containing the principles of our belief and 
practice, from which no real Catholic, in any part of the world, 
can ever depart, are before the public, and upon constant sale 
among booksellers. 

2dly. It being a notorious fact that certain individual Chris- 
tians, or bodies of Christians, have departed from the faith and 
communion of the church of all nations, under pretence that 
they had authority for so doing ; it is necessary that their al- 
leged authority should be express and incontrovertible. Thus, 
for example, if texts of Scripture are brought for this purpose, 
it is evidently necessary that such texts should be clear in them- 
selves, and not contrasted by any other texts seemingly of an 
opposite meaning. In like manner, when any doctrine or prac- 
tice appears to be undeniably sanctioned by a father of the 
church, for example, of the third or the fourth century, without 
an appearance of contradiction from any other father, or eccle- 
siastical writer, it is unreasonable to affirm that he or his con- 
temporaries were the authors of it, as Protestant divines are in 
the habit of affirming. On the contrary, it is natural to sup- 
pose that such father has taken up this, with the other points of 
his religion, from his predecessors, who received them from the 
apostles. This is the sentiment of that bright luminary St. 
Augustin, who says : " Whatever is found to be held by the 
universal church, and not to have had its beginning in bishops 
and councils, must be esteemed a tradition from those by whom 
the church itself was founded."* 

You judged right in supposing that I have received some let- 
ters, containing virulent and gross invectives against the Catho- 
lic religion, from certain members of your society ; these do 
not surprise or hurt me, as the writers of them have probably 
not yet had an opportunity of knowing much more of this reli- 
gion, than what they could collect from fifth of November ser- 
mons, and others of the same tendency ; or from circulated 
pamphlets expressly calculated to inflame the population against 
it and its professors. But what truly surprises and afflicts me 
is, that so many other personages in a more elevated rank of 
life, whose education and studies enable them to form a more 
just idea of the religious and moral principles of their ances- 
tors, benefactors, and founders ; in short, of their acknow- 



* Lib. u. De Bapt 



CHARGES AGAINST THE CHURCH. 



203 



ledged fathers and saints, should combine to load these fathers 
and saints with calumnies and misrepresentations, which they 
must know to be utterly false. But a bad cause must be sup- 
ported by bad means. They are unfortunately implicated in a 
revolt against the true church ; and not having the courage 
and self-denial to acknowledge their error, and return to her 
communion, they endeavor to justify their conduct, by interpos- 
ing a black and hideous mask before the fair countenance of 
this their true mother, Christ's spotless spouse. This is so far 
true, that when, as it often happens, a Protestant is, by dint of 
argument, forced out of his errors and prejudices against the 
true religion, if he be pressed to embrace it, and want grace to 
do it, he is sure to fly back to those very calumnies and mis- 
representations, which he had before renounced. The fact is, 
he must fight with these, or yield himself unarmed to his Catho- 
lic opponent. 

That you and your friends may not think me, dear sir, to 
have complained without just cause of the publications and ser- 
mons of the respectable characters I have alluded to, I must 
inform you that I have now lying before me a volume called 
Good Advice to the Pulpits, consisting of the foulest and most 
malignant falsehoods, against the Catholic religion and its pro- 
fessors, which tongue or pen can express, or the most envenomed 
heart conceive. It was collected from the sermons and treati- 
ses of prelates and dignitaries, by that able and faithful writer, 
the Rev. John Gother,soon after the gall of calumnious ink had 
been mixed up with the blood of slaughtered Catholics ; a score 
of whom were executed as traitors, for a pretended plot to mur- 
der their friend and proselyte Charles II.; for a plot, which was 
hatched by men, who themselves were soon after convicted of a 
real assassination plot against the king. At that time, the Par- 
liaments were so blinded, as repeatedly to vote the reality of the 
plot in question. Hence it is easy to judge with what sort of 
language the pulpits would resound against the poor devoted 
Catholics at that period. But without quoting from former re- 
cords, I need only refer to a few of the publications of the pre- 
sent day, to justify my complaint. — To begin with some of the 
numberless slanders contained in the No Popery tract of the 
Bishop of London, Dr. Porteus : He charges Catholics with 
"senseless idolatry, to the infinite scandal of religion:" with 
trying " to make the ignorant think that indulgences deliver 
the dead from hell ; and that by means of zeal for holy church, 
the worst man may be secured from future misery :"* and the 
Bish^> of St. Asaph, Dr. Halifax, charges Catholics with 



* Confutation, pp. 39, 53, 55, edit. 1796. 



204 



LETTER XXXII. 



"antichristian idolatry, the worship of demons, and idol media- 
tors." He, moreover, maintains it to be the doctrine of the 
Church of Rome, that " pardon for every sin, whether com- 
mitted or designed, may be purchased for money."* The 
Bishop of Durham, Dr. Shute Barrington, accuses them of 
" idolatry, blasphemy, and sacrilege."! The Bishop of Llandaff, 
Dr. Watson, impeaches the Catholic priests, martyrologists, and 
monks, without exception, of the " hypocrisy of liars ;"J and 
he lays it down, as the moral doctrine of Catholics, that " humil- 
ity, temperance, justice, the love of God and man, are not laws 
for all Christians, but only counsels of perfection. "§ He else- 
where says : " That the popish religion is the Christian religion, 
is a false position. "|| He has, moreover, adopted and repub- 
lished the sentiments of some of his other mitred brethren to the 
same purpose. One of these asserts that, "instead of worship- 
ping God through Christ, they (the Catholics) have substituted 
the doctrine of demons." " They have contrived numberless 
ways to make a holy life needless, and to assure the most 
abandoned of salvation, without repentance, provided they will 
sufficiently pay the priest for absolution." " They have conse- 
crated murdeis," &c.1T " The Papists stick fast in filthy mire — 
by the affection they bear to other lusts, which their errors are 
fitted to gratify." " It is impossible that any sincere person 
should give an implicit assent to many of their doctrines : but, 
whoever can practise upon them, can be nothing better than a 
most shameful debauched and immoral wretch."** Another 
prelate, of later promotion, gives a comprehensive idea of Cath- 
olics, where he calls them " Enemies of all law, human and 
divine. "ff If such be the tone of the episcopal bench, it would 
be vain to expect more moderation from the candidates for it . 
but I must contract my quotations in order to proceed to more 
important matter. One of these, who, while he was content 
with an inferior dignity, acted and preached as the friend of 
Catholics ; since he has arrived at the verge of the highest, pro- 
claims " Popery to be idolatry and antichristianism :" main- 
taining, as does also the Bishop of Durham, that it is " the pa- 
rent of Atheism, and of that antichristian persecution " (in 
France) of which it was exclusively the victim.^ Another dig- 
nitary of the same cathedral, taking up Dr. Sparke's calumny, 

* Warburton's Lectures, pp. 191, 335, 358, 347. 

t Charge, p. 11. t Letter II. to Gibbon. 

§ Bishop Watson's Tracts, vol. i. || Ibid. vol. v. Contents. 

IT Benson's Tracts, vol. v. pp. 272, 273, 282. 

** Bishop Fowler, vol. vi. pp. 386, 387. 

tt Dr. Sparke, Bishop of Ely, Concio ad Synod. 1807. 

tt Discourses of Dr. Rennel, Dean of Winchester, p. 140, &c. 



CHARGES AGAINST THE CHURCH. 



205 



seriously declares that the Catholics are Antinomians* which 
is the distinctive character of the Jumpers, and other rank Cal- 
vinists. Finally, the celebrated city preacher, C. De Coetlogan, 
among similar graces of oratory, pronounces, that "Popery is 
calculated only for the meridian of hell. To say the best of it 
that can be said, Popery is a most horrid compound of idolatry, 
superstition, and blasphemy, "f " The exercise of Christian 
virtues is not at all necessary in its members ; nay, there are 
many heinous crimes, which are reckoned virtues among them, 
such as perjury and murder, when committed against here- 
tics."^: — And is such then, dear sir, the real character of the 
great body of Christians throughout the world. Is such a true 
picture of our Saxon and English ancestors ? Were such the 
clergy, from whom these modern preachers and writers derive 
their liturgy, their ritual, their honors, and benefices, and from 
whom they boast of deriving their orders and mission also ? But, 
after all, do these preachers and writers themselves seriously 
believe such to be the true character of their Catholic country- 
men, and the primitive religion ? — No, sir, they do not seriously 
believe it :§ but being unfortunately engaged, as I said before, 

* Charge of Dr. Hooke, archdeacon, &c. p. 5, &c. 

t Seasonable Caution against the Abominations of the Church of Rome, 
Pref. p. 5. t Ibid. p. 14. 

§ This may be exemplified by the conduct of Dr. Wake, Archbishop of 
Canterbury. Few writers had misrepresented the Catholic religion more 
foully than he had done in his controversial works ; even in his commentary 
on the catechism, he accuses it of heresy, schism, and idolatry; but, having 
entered into a correspondence with Dr. Dupin, for the purpose of uniting 
their respective churches, he assures the Catholic divine, in his last letter to 
him, as follows : " In dogmatibus, prout a te candide prcponuntur, non 
admodum dissentimus : in regimine ecclesiastico minus : in fundamentali- 
bus, sive doctrinam, sive disciplinam spectemus, vix omnino." Append, to 
Mosheiin's Hist. vol. vi. p. 121. — The present writer has been informed, 
on good authority, that one of the bishops, whose calumnies are here quoted, 
when he found himself on his death-bed, refused the proffered ministry of 
the primate, and expressed a great wish to die a Catholic. When urged to 
satisfy his conscience, he exclaimed : What then will become of my lady 
and my children ! Certain it is, that very manj r Protestants, who had been 
the most violent in their language and conduct against the Catholic Church, 
as for example, John, Elector of Saxony ; Margaret, Queen of Navarre ; 
Cromwell, Lord Essex, Dudley, Earl of Northumberland, King Charles II., 
the late Lords Montague, Nugent, Dunboyne, Dunsany, &c, did actually 
reconcile themselves to the Catholic Church in that situation. The writer 
may add, that another of the calumniators here quoted, being desirous of 
stifling the suspicion of his having written an anonymous No Popery pub- 
lication, when first he took part in that cause, privately addressed himself to 
the writer in these terms : How can you suspect me of writing against your 
religion, when you so well know my attachment to it ! In fact, this modem 
Luther, among other similar concessions, has said thus to the writer ; / 
tucked in a love for the Catholic religion with my mother's milk. 

18 



206 



LETTER XXXII. 



in an hereditary revolt against the church, which shines forth 
conspicuous, with every feature of truth in her countenance, 
and wanting the rare grace of acknowledging their error, at the 
expense of temporal advantages, they have no other defence for 
themselves but clamor and calumny, no resource for shrouding 
those beauteous features of the church, but by placing before 
them the hideous mask of misrepresentation ! 

Before I close this letter, I cannot help expressing an earnest 
wish, that it were in my power to suggest three most important 
considerations to all and every one of the theological calumni- 
ators in question. I pass over their injustice and cruelty to- 
wards us ; though this bears some resemblance with the bar- 
barity of Nero towards our predecessors, the first Christians of 
Rome, who disguised them in the skins of wild beasts, and then 
hunted them to death with dogs ; but Christ has warned us as 
follows : " It is enough for the disciple to be as his master ; if 
they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much 
more them of his household ?" In fact, we know that those our 
above-mentioned predecessors were charged with worshipping 
the head of an ass, of killing and eating children, &c. 

The first observation which I am desirous of making to these 
controvertists is, that their charges and invectives against Catho- 
lics never unsettle the faith of a single individual amongst us ; 
much less do they cause any Catholic to quit our communion. 
This we are sure of, because, after all the pains and expenses 
of the Protestant societies to distribute Dr. Porteus's Confuta- 
tion of Popery, and other tracts, in the houses and cottages of 
Catholics, not one of the latter ever comes to us, their pastors, 
to be furnished with an answer to the accusations contained in 
them. The truth is, they previously know, from their cate- 
chisms, the falsehood of them. Sometimes, no doubt, a disso- 
lute youth, " from libertinism of principle and practice," as one 
of the above-mentioned lords loudly proclaimed of himself, on 
his death-bed : and sometimes an ambitious or avaricious noble- 
man or gentleman, to get honor or wealth ; finally, sometimes a 
profligate priest, to get a wife, or a living, forsakes our commu- 
nion ; — but, I may challenge Dr. Porteus to produce a single 
proselyte from Popery throughout the dioceses of Chester and 
London, who has been gained by his book against it ; and I 
may say the same, with respect to the Bishop of Durham's no 
popery charges throughout the dioceses of Sarum and Durham. 

A second point of still greater importance for the considera- 
tion of these distinguished preachers and writers is, that their 
flagrant misrepresentation of the Catholic religion, is constantly 
an occasion of the conversion of several of their own most upright 
members to it. Such Christians, when they fall into company 



INVOCATION OF SAINTS. 



207 



with Catholics, or get hold of their books, cannot fail of inquir- 
ing whether they are really those monsters of idolatry, irreligion, 
and immorality, which their divines have represented them to 
be ; when, discovering how much they have been deceived in 
these respects by misrepresentation ; and, in short, viewing now 
the fair face of the Catholic Church, instead of the hideous mask 
which had been placed before it, they seldom fail to become 
enamored of it, and, in case religion is their chief concern, to 
become our very best Catholics. 

The most important point, however, of all others for the con- 
sideration of these learned theologues, is the following : " We 
must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ," to be ex- 
amined on our observance of that commandment among the 
rest, " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." 
Supposing then these their clamorous charges against their 
Catholic neighbors, of idolatry, blasphemy, perfidy, and thirst 
of blood, should then appear, as they most certainly will appear, 
to be calumnies of the worst sort ; what will it avail their au- 
thors, that these have answered the temporary purpose of pre- 
venting the emancipation of Catholics, and of rousing the popu- 
lar hatred and fury against them ? Alas ! what will it avail 
them ? — I am, dear sir, yours, &c. 

John Milner. 
LETTER XXXIII. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c. 

ON THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS. 
Dear sir — 

The first, and most heavy charge, which Protestants bring 
against Catholics, is that of idolatry. They say, that the Catho- 
lic Church has been guilty of this crime, and of apostacy, by 
sanctioning the invocation of saints, and the worship of images 
and pictures : and that on this account they have been obliged 
to abandon her communion, in obedience to "the voice from 
heaven, saying, — Come out of her, my people, that ye be not par- 
takers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." Rev. 
xviii. 4. Nevertheless it is certain, dear sir, that Protestantism 
was not founded on this ground, eithe-r in Germany or England ; 
for Luther warmly defended the Catholic doctrine in both the 
aforesaid particulars ; and our English reformers, particularly 
King Edward's uncle, the Duke of Somerset, only took up this 
pretext of idolatry, as the most popular, in order to revolutionize 
the ancient religion ; a measure they were actively carrying 
on, from motives of avarice and ambition. The same reason, 
namely, a persuasion that this charge of idolatry is best calcu- 



208 



LETTER XXXIII. 



lated to inflame the ignorant against the Catholic Church, and to 
furnish a pretext for deserting her, has caused Protestant con- 
trovertists to keep up t*he outcry against her ever since, and to 
vie with each other in the foulness of their misrepresentation of 
her doctrine in this particular. 

To speak first of the invocation of saints : Archbishop Wake, 
(who afterwards, as we have seen, acknowledged to Dr. Dupin, 
that there was no fundamental difference between his doctrine 
and that of Catholics,) in his popular Commentary on the 
Church Catechism, maintains, that " The Church of Rome has 
other gods beside the Lord."* Another prelate, whose work 
has been lately republished by the Bishop of LlandafF, pro- 
nounces of Catholics, that, " Instead of worshipping Christ, they 
have substituted the doctrine of demons.^ In the same blas- 
phemous terms, Mede, and a hundred other Protestant contro- 
vertists, speak of our communion of saints. The Bishop of 
London, among other such calumnies, charges us with " bring- 
ing back the heathen multitude of deities into Christianity 
that we " recommend ourselves to some favorite saint, not by a 
religious life, but by flattering addresses and costly presents, 
and often depend much more on his intercession, than on our 
blessed Saviour's and that " being secure of the favor of 
these courtiers of heaven, we pay but little regard to the King 
of it.":j: Such is the misrepresentation of the doctrine and 
practice of Catholics on this point, which the first ecclesiastical 
characters in the nation publish ; because, in fact, their cause 
has not a leg to stand on, if you take away misrepresentation. 

Let us now hear what is the genuine doctrine of the Catholic 
Church on this article, as solemnly defined by the pope, and 
near 300 prelates of different nations, at the Council of Trent, 
in the face of the whole world ; it is simply this, that " the 
saints, reigning with Christ, offer up their prayers to God for 
men ; that it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them, and 
to have recourse to their prayers, help, and assistance, to obtain 
favors from God, through his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is 
alone our Redeemer and Saviour." § Hence the Catechism of 
the Council of Trent, published in virtue of its decree, || by or- 
der of Pope Pius V., teaches that " God and the saints are not 
to be prayed to in the same manner ; for we pray to God that 
he himself would give us good things, and deliver us from evil 
things ; but we beg of the saints, because they are pleasing to 
God, that they would be our advocates, and obtain from God 

* Sect. 2, 3. t Bishop Watson's Theol. Tracts, vol. v. p. 272. 

t Brief Confut. pp. 23, 25. § Concil. Trid. Sess. 25, de Invoc. 

|| Sess. 24, de Ref. c. 7 



INVOCATION OF SAINTS. 



209 



what we stand in need of."* Our first English catechism for 
the instruction of children says : " We are to honor saints and 
angels as God's special friends and servants ; but not with the 
honor which belongs to God." Finally, The Papist Misrepre- 
sented and Represented, a work of great authority among Catho- 
lics, first published by our eminent divine, Gother, and repub- 
lished by our venerable Bishop Challoner, pronounces the fol- 
lowing anathema against that idolatrous phantom of Catholicity, 
which Protestant controvertists have held up for the identical 
Catholic Church : " Cursed is he that believes the saints in 
heaven to be his redeemers, that prays to them as such, or that 
gives God's honor to them, or to any creature whatsoever. 
Amen."— " Cursed is every goddess- worshipper, that believes 
the blessed Virgin Mary to be any more than a creature ; that 
worships her, or puts his trust in her more than in God ; that 
believes her above her Son, or that she can in any thing com- 
mand him. Amen."f 

You see, dear sir, how widely different the doctrine of Catho- 
lics, as defined by our church, and really held by us, is from 
the caricature of it held up by interested preachers and contro- 
vertists, to scare and inflame an ignorant multitude. So far 
from making gods and goddesses of the saints, we firmly hold 
it to be ^an article of faith, that, as they have no virtue or ex- 
cellence, but what has been gratuitously bestowed upon them 
by God, for the sake of his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, so they 
can procure no benefit for us but by means of their prayers to 
the Giver of all good gifts, through their and our common Sa- 
viour Jesus Christ. In short, they do nothing for us poor mor- 
tals, in heaven, but what they did while they were here on 
earth, and what all good Christians are bound to do for each 
other ; namely, to help us by their prayers. The only differ- 
ence is, that as the saints in heaven are free from every stain 
of sin and imperfection, and are confirmed in grace and glory, 
so their prayers are far more efficacious for obtaining what they 
ask for, than are the prayers of us imperfect and sinful mortals. 
Our Protestant brethren will not deny that St. Paul was in the 
practice of soliciting the prayers of the churches to which he 
addressed his epistles, Rom. xv. 30, &c. ; that the Almighty 
himself commanded the friends of Job to obtain his prayers for 
the pardon of their sins, Job xlii. 8:— and, moreover that they 
themselves are accustomed to pray publicly for one another. 
Now these concessions, together with the authorized exposition 
of our doctrine, laid down above, are abundantly sufficient. to 
refute most of the remaining objections of Protestants against 



* Pars, IV. Quis orandus. t Pap, Misrep. Abridg, p. 78 

18*. 



210 



LETTER XXXIII. 



it. In vain, for example, does Dr. Porteus quote the text of St. 
Paul, 1 Tim. ii, 5, There is one Mediator between God and men> 
the man Christ Jesus : for we grant that Christ alone is the me- 
diator of salvation. But if he argues from thence, that there is 
no other mediator of intercession, he would condemn the conduct 
of St. Paul, of Job's friends, and of his own church. In vain 
does he take advantage of the ambiguous meaning of the word 
worship in Matt. iv. 10; because, if the question be about a 
divine adoration, we restrain this as strictly to God as he can 
do ; but if it be about merely honoring the saints, we cannot 
censure that, without censuring other passages of Scripture,* 
and condemning the bishop himself, who expressly says ; "The 
saints in heaven we love and honor.-\ In vain does he quote 
Rev. xix. 10, where the angel refused to let St. John prostrate 
himself, and adore him ; because, if the mere act itself, inde- 
pendently of the evangelist's mistaking him for the Deity, was for- 
bidden, then the three angels, who permitted Abraham to bow 
himself to the ground before them, were guilty of a crime, Gen. 
xviii. 2, as was that other angel, before whom Joshua fell on his 
face and worshipped. Jos. v. 14. 

The charge of idolatry against Catholics, for merely honoring 
those whom God honors, and for desiring them to pray to God 
for us, is too extravagant to be any longer published by Pro- 
testants of learning and character ; accordingly the Bishop of 
Durham is content with accusing us of blasphemy, on the latter 
part of the charge. What he says is this : " It is blasphemy, 
to ascribe to angels and saints, by praying to them, the divine 
attribute of universal presence.":}: To say nothing of his lord- 
ship's new invented blasphemy, I should be glad to ask him, 
how it follows, from my praying to an angel or a saint in any 
place, where I may be, that I necessarily believe the angel or 
saint to be in that place ? Was Elisha really in Syria when 
he saw the ambush prepared there for the king of Israel ? 2 
Kings vi. 9. Again : we know that " There is joy before the 

* The word worship, in this place, is used for supreme divine homage, as 
appears by the original Greek : whereas in St. Luke, xiv. 10, the English 
translators make use of it for the lowest degree of respect, Thou shalt have 
worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. The latter is 
the proper meaning of the word worship ; as appears by the marriage ser- 
vice — With my body 7 thee worship; and by the designation of the lowest 
order of magistrates, his Worship, Mr. Alderman N. Nevertheless, as the 
word may be differently interpreted, Catholics abstain from applying it to 
persons or things inferior to God : making use of the words honor and vene. 
ration in their regard ; words which, so applied, even Bishop Porteus ap- 
proves in us. Thus it appears, that the heinous charge of idolatry brought 
against Catholics for their respect towards the saints, is grounded on nothing 
but the mistaken meaning of a word. t P. 23. t Charge 1810, p. 12 



INVOCATION OF SAINTS. 



211 



angels of God over one sinner that repenteth," Luke xv. 10. 
Now, is it by visual rays, or undulating sounds, that these bless- 
ed spirits in heaven know what passes in the hearts of men 
upon earth ? How does his lordship know, that one part of 
the saint's felicity may not consist in contemplating the wonder- 
ful ways of God's providence with all his creatures here on 
earth ? But, without recurring to this supposition, it is suffi- 
cient, for dissipating the Bishop's uncharitable phantom of blas- 
phemy, and Calvin's profane jest about the lenghts of the saints' 
ears, that God is able to reveal to them the prayers of Christians 
who address them here on earth. — In case I had the same op- 
portunity of conversing with this prelate, which I once enjoyed, 
I should not. fail to make the following observation to him : My 
lord, you publicly maintain, that the act of praying to saints, 
ascribes to them the divine attribute of universal presence ; and 
this you call blasphemy. Now it appears, by the articles and 
injunctions of your church, that you believe in the existence 
and efficacy of " sorceries, enchantments, and witchcraft invent- 
ed by the devil, to procure his counsel or help,"* wherever the 
conjuror or witch may chance to be ; do you, therefore, ascribe 
the divine attribute of universal presence to the devil ? You must 
assert this, or you must withdraw your charge of blasphemy 
against the Catholics, for praying to the saints. 

That it is lawful and profitable to invoke the prayers of the 
angels, is plain from Jacob's asking and obtaining the angel's 
blessing, with whom he had mystically wrestled, Gen. xxxii. 
26, and from his invoking his own angel to bless Joseph's sons, 
Gen. xlvii. 16. The same is also sufficiently plain with re- 
spect to the saints, from the Book of Revelations ; where the 
four and twenty elders in heaven are said to have " golden 
vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints." Rev. 
v. 8. The church, however, derived her doctrine, on this and 
other points, immediately from the apostles, before any part of 
the New Testament was written. The tradition was so ancient 
and universal, that all those eastern churches, which broke off 
from the central church of Rome, a great many ages before 
Protestantism was heard of, perfectly agree with us in honoring 
and invoking the angels and saints. I have said that the pa- 
triach of Protestantism, Martin Luther, did not find any thing 
idolatrous in the doctrine or practice of the church with respect 
to the saints. So far from this, he exclaims : " Who can deny 
that God works great miracles at the tombs of the saints ? I, 
therefore, with the whole Catholic Church, hold that the saints 

* Injunctions, A D. 1559. Bishop Sparrow's Collection, p. 89. Article, 
ibid. p. 180. 



212 



LETTER XXXIII. 



are to be honored and invocated by us."* In the same spirit 

he recommends this devotion to dying persons : " Let no one 
omit to call upon the Blessed Virgin and the angels and saints, 
that they may intercede with God for them at the instant. "f I 
may add that several of the brightest lights of the established 
church, such as Archbishop Sheldon and the Bishops Blandford.J 
Gunning,§ Montague, &c, have altogether abandoned the charge 
of idolatry against Catholics on this head. The last mentioned 
of them says. " I own that Christ is not wronged in his media- 
tion. It is no impiety to say, as they (the Catholics) do, Holy 
Mary, pray for me ; Holy Peter, pray for me /"|| whilst the can- 
did Prebendary of Westminster warns his brethren, " not to 
lead people by the nose, to believe they can prove papists to be 
idolaters, when they cannot. 

In conclusion, dear sir, you will observe, that the Council of 
Trent barely teaches that it is good and profitable to invoke the 
prayers of the saints ; hence our divines infer, that there is no 
positive law of the church, incumbent on all her children to 
pray to the saints.** Nevertheless, what member of the Catho- 
lic Church militant will fail to communicate with his brethren 
of the church triumphant'? What Catholic, believing in the 
communion of saints, and that 11 the saints reigning with Christ 
pray for us, and that it is good and profitable for us to invoke 
their prayers," will forego this advantage ? How sublime and 
consoling ! how animating is the doctrine and practice of true 
Catholics, compared with the opinions of Protestants ! We hold 
daily and hourly converse, to our unspeakable comfort ai-d ad- 
vantage with the angelic choirs, with the venerable patriarchs 
and prophets of ancient times, with the heroes of Christianity, 
the blessed apostles and martyrs, and with the bright ornaments 
of it in later ages, the Bernards, the Xaviers, the Teresas, and 
the Saleses. They are all members of the Catholic Church! — 
Why should not you partake of this advantage ? Your soul, 
you complain, dear sir, is in trouble ; you lament that your 
prayers to God are not heard : — continue to pray to him with 
all the fervor of your soul ; but why not engage his friends and 
courtiers to add the weight of their prayers to your own ? Per- 
haps his Divine Majesty may hear the prayers of the Jobs when 
he will not listen to those of an Eliphaz, a Bildad. or a Zophar. 
Job. xlii. You believe, no doubt, that you have a guardian 
angel, appointed by God to protect you, conformably to what 

* In Purg. quoramd. Artie. Tom. i. Gerrnet. Ep. ad Georg. Spalat. 
t Luth. Prep, ad Mort. X See Duchess of York's Testimony, in Bruns. 
wick's 50 Reasons. § Burnet's Hist, of his own Times, vol. i. p. 437 

j{ Treat. Invoc. of Saints, p. 118. fl" Thorndike's Just. Weights, p. 10 
** Petavius, Suarez, Wallenburg, Muratori ; Nat. Alex. 



RELIGIOUS MEMORIALS, 



213 



Christ said of the children presented to him : " Their angels 
do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven." 
Matt, xviii. 10.— Address yourself to this blessed spirit with 
gratitude, veneration, and confidence. You believe also, that 
among the saints of God, there is one of supereminent purity 
and sanctity, pronounced by an archangel to be not only gra- 
cious, but " full of grace the chosen instrument of God in the 
incarnation of his Son, and the intercessor with this her Son in 
obtaining his first miracle, that of turning water into wine, at 
a time when his " time" for appearing in the world by mi- 
racles was not yet come. John, iii. 4. " It is impossible," as 
one of the fathers says, " to love the Son, without loving the 
mother:"' — beg then of her, with affection and confidence, to in- 
tercede with Jesus, as the poor Canaanites did, to change the 
tears of your distress into the wine of gladness, by affording 
you the light and grace you so much want. You cannot refuse 
to join with me in the angelic salutation : " Hail full of grace, 
our Lord is with thee nor in the subsequent address of the 
inspired Elizabeth : " Blessed art thou among women, and 
blessed is the fruit of thy womb," Luke, i. 42. Cast aside, then, 
I beseech you, dear sir, prejudices which are not only ground- 
less but also hurtful, and devoutly conclude with me, in the 
words of the whole Catholic Church upon earth : Holy Mary, 
mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our 
death. Amen. — I am, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XXXIV. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c. 
ON RELIGIOUS MEMORIALS. 

Dear sir — 

If the Catholic Church has been so grievously injured by the 
misrepresentations of her doctrine respecting prayers to the saints, 
she has been still more grievously injured by the prevailing 
calumnies against the respect which she pays to the memorials 
of Christ and his saints ; namely, to crucifixes, relics, pious pic- 
tures, and images. This has been misrepresented, from almost 
the first eruption of Protestantism,*]- as rank idolatry, and as jus- 

* Luke i. 28. The Catholic version is here used as more conformable to 
the Greek, as well as the Vulgate, than the Protestant, which renders the 
passage, Hail thou who art highly favored. 

t Martin Luther, with all his hatred of the Catholic Church, found no 
idolatry in her doctrine respecting crosses and images : on the contrary, he 
warmly defended it against Carlostadius and his associates, who had destroy- 
ed those in the churches of Wittenberg. — Epist. ad. Gasp. Guttal. In the 
title-pages of his volumes, published by Melancthon, Luther is exhibited oo 



§14 



tifying the necessity of a reformation. To countenance such 
misrepresentation in our own country in particular, avaricious 
courtiers and grandees seized on the costly shrines, statues, and 
other ornaments of all the churches and chapels, and authorized 
the demolition or defacing of all other religious memorials, of 
whatever nature or materials, not only in places of worship, but 
also in market-places, and even in private houses. In support 
of the same pious fraud, the Holy Scriptures were corrupted in 
their different versions and editions,* till religious Protestants 
themselves became disgusted with them,f and loudly called for 
a new translation. This was accordingly made, at the begin- 
ning of the first James' reign. In short, every passage in the 
Bible, and every argument which common sense suggests 
against idolatry, was applied to the decent respect which Catho- 
lics show to the memorials of Christianity. 

The misrepresentation in question still continues to be the 
chosen topic of Protestant controvertists, for inflaming the minds 
of the ignorant against their Catholic brethren. Accordingly, 
there is hardly a lisping infant, who has not been taught that 
the Romanists pray to images / nor is there a secluded peasant 
who has not been made to believe, that the Papists ivorsh p wood- 
en gods. The Book of Homilies repeatedly affirms, that our 
images of Christ and his saints are idols ; that we " pray and 
ask of them what it belongs to God alone to give ;" and that 
" images have been and be worshipped, and so, idolatry commit- 
ted to them by infinite multitudes, to the great offence of God's 

his knees before a crucifix. Queen Elizabeth persisted for many years in re* 
taining a crucifix on the altar of her chapel, till some of her Puritan courtiers 
engaged Patch, the fool, to break it : " no wiser man," says Dr. Heylin, 
(Hist, of Reform, p. 124,) "daring to undertake such a service." James I. 
thus reproached the Scotch bishops, when they objected to his placing pic- 
tures and statues in his chapel at Edinburgh : " You can endure lions and 
dragons, {the supporters of the royal arms,) and devils, (Queen Elizabeth's 
griffin?,) to be figured in your churches, but will not allow the like place to 
patriarchs and apostles." Spotswood's History, p. 530. 

* See in the present English Bible, Colos. iii. 5, Covetovsness, which is 
idolatry : this in the Bibles of 1562, 1577, and 1579, stood thus : Covetovsness, 
which is the Worshipping of images. In like manner, where we read, a covetous 
man who is an idolater : in the former editions we read, a covetous man which 
is a worshipper of idols. Instead of, What agreement hath the temple of God 
with idols ? 2 Cor. vi. 16, it used to stand : How agreeth the temple of God 
with images? Instead of, Little children, keep yourselves from idols, 1 John 
v. 21, it stood during the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth : Babes, keep your- 
selves from images. There were several other manifest corruptions in this 
as well as in other points in the ancient Protestant Bibles ; some of which 
remain in the present version. 

t See the account of what passed on this subject, at the Conference of 
Hampton Court, in Fuller and Collier's Church Histories, and in Neal's His- 
tory of the Puritans. 



KELiGIOTJS MEMORIALS* 



215 



majestie, and danger of infinite soules ; that idolatrie can not 
possibly be separated from images set up in churches, and that 
God's horrible wrath and our most dreadful danger cannot be 
avoided without the destruction and utter abolition of all such 
images and idols out of the church and temple of God."* Arch- 
bishop Seeker teaches, that " the Church of Rome has other 
gods besides the Lord," and that, " there never was greater 
idolatry among heathens in the business of image-worshipping 
than in the Church of Rome."f Bishop Porteus, though he 
does not charge us with idolatry by name, yet intimates the 
same thing, where he applies to us one of the strongest passages 
of Scripture against idol-worship : " They that make them are 
like unto them ; and so is every one that trusteth in them. O 
Israel, trust thou in the Lord." Psalm cxiii. 

Let us now hear what the Catholic Church herself has soh 
emnly pronounced on the present subject, in her General Coun- 
cil of Trent. She says : " The images of Christ, of the Virgin- 
mother of God, and of the other saints, are to be kept and 
retained, particularly in the churches, and due honor and vene- 
ration is to be paid them : not, that we believe there is any 
divinity or power in them, for which we respect them, or that any 
thing is to be asked of them, or that trust is to be placed in 
them, as the heathens of old trusted in their idols. "f In con- 
formity with this doctrine of our church, the following question 
and answer are seen in our first catechism, for the instruction 
of children : " Question : May we pray to relics or images 1 
Answer : No ; by no means, for they have no life or sense to 
hear or help us." Finally, that work of the able Catholic wri- 
ters, Gother and Chal loner, which I quoted above, The Papist 
Misrepresented and Represented, contains the following anathe- 
ma, in which I am confident every Catholic existing will readily 
join : " Cursed is he that commits idolatry ; that prays to images 
or relics, or worships them for God. Amen." 

Dr. Porteus is very positive, that there is no scriptural war- 
rant for retaining and venerating these exterior memorials ; and 
he maintains that no other memorial ought to be admitted than 
the Lord's supper. Does he remember the ark of the covenant, 

* Against the Peril of Idol. p. iii.— This admonition was quickly carried 
into effect throughout England. All statues, bas-relievos, and crosses, were 
demolished in all the churches, and all pictures were defaced ; while they 
continued to hold their places, as they do still, in the Protestant churches of 
Germany. At length common sense regained its rights, even in this country. 
Accordingly we see the cross exalted at the top of its principal church, (St. 
Paul's,) which is also ornamented all round with the statues of saints ; most 
of the cathedrals and collegiate churches now contain pictures, and some of 
them, as for example, Westminster Abbey, carved images. 

t Comment on Ch. Catech. sect. 24. X Sess. xxv. 



LETTER XXXIV. 



made by the command of God, together with the punishment of 
those who profaned it, and the blessings bestowed on those who 
revered it ? And what was the ark of the covenant after all ? 
A chest of settim wood, containing the tables of the law and two 
golden pots of manna ; the whole being covered over by two 
carved images of cherubim ; in short, it was a memorial of 
God's mercy and bounty to his people. But, says the bishop, 
" The Roman Catholics make images of Christ and of his saints 
after their own fancy : before these images, and even that of 
the cross, they kneel down and prostrate themselves ; to these 
they lift up their eyes, and in that posture they pray."* Sup- 
posing all this to be true ; has the bishop never read, that when 
the Israelites were smitten at Ai, " Joshua fell to the earth upon 
his face, before the ark of the Lord, until the even-tide, he and 
the elders of Israel ; and Joshua said, Alas, O Lord God," &c. 
Jos. vii. 6. Does not he himself oblige those who frequent the 
above-mentioned memorial, to kneel and prostrate themselves 
before it, at which time it is to be , supposed they lift up their 
eyes to the sacrament and say their prayers ? Does he not re- 
quire of his people, that " when the name of JESUS is pro- 
nounced in any lesson, &c, due reverence be made of all with 
lowliness of courtesie ?"f And does he consider, as well-found- 
ed, the outcry of idolatry against the Established Church, on this 
and the preceding point, raised by the dissenters ? Again, is 
not his lordship in the habit of kneeling to his majesty, and of 
bowing, with the other peers, to an empty chair when it is placed 
at his throne ? Does he not often reverently kiss the material 
substance of printed paper and leather, I mean the Bible, be- 
cause it relates to, and represents the sacred word of God ? 
"When the Bishop of London shall have well considered these 
several matters, methinks he will better understand, than he seema 
to do at present, the nature of relative honor ; by which an inferior 
respect may be paid to the sign, for the sake of the thing signified, 
and he will neither directly nor indirectly charge the Catho- 
lics with idolatry on account of indifferent ceremonies, which 
take their nature from the intention of those who use them. 
During the dispute about pious images, which took place in the 
eighth century, St. Stephen, of Auxence, having endeavored, in 
vain, to make his persecutor, the Emperor Copronimus, conceive 
the nature of relative honor and dishonor in this matter, threw 
a piece of money, bearing the emperor's figure, on the ground, 
and treated it with the utmost indignity ; when the latter soon 
proved, by his treatment of the saint, that the affront regarded 
himself, rather than the piece of metal. J 

* Confut. p. 27. t Injunctions, A. D. 1559, n. 52. Canons, 1603, n> 18. 
X Fleury's Hist. Ecc. L. xliii> m 41. 



RELIGIOUS MEMORIALS. 



217 



The bishop objects, that the Catholics " make pictures of God 
the Father under the likeness of a venerable old man." Cer- 
tain painters, indeed, have represented him so, as, in fact, he 
was pleased to appear so to some of the prophets, Isa. vi. 1— 
Dan. vii. 9; but the Council of Trent says nothing concerning 
that representation ; which, after all, is not so common as 
that of a triangle among Protestants, to represent the Trinity. 
Thus much, however, is most certain, that if any Christian 
were obstinately to maintain, that the Divine nature resembles 
the human form, he would be condemned as an anthropomorphite 
heretic. The bishop moreover signifies, what most other Pro- 
testant controvertists express more coarsely, that, to screen our 
idolatry, we have suppressed the second commandment of the 
Decalogue, and to make up the deficiency, we have split the 
tenth commandment into two. My answer is, that I apprehend 
many of these disputants are ignorant enough to believe, that 
the division of the commandments, in their Common Prayer 
Book, was copied, if not from the identical tables of Moses, at 
least from his original text of the Pentateuch : but the bishop, 
as a man of learning, must know, that in the original Hebrew y 
and in the several copies and versions of it, during some thou- 
sands of years, there was no mark of separation between one 
commandment and another ; so that we have no rules to be 
guided by, in making the distinction, but the sense of the con- 
text, and the authority of the most approved fathers ;* both , 
which we follow. In the mean time, it is a gross calumny to 
pretend, that we suppress any part of the Decalogue ; for the 
whole of it appears in all our Bibles, and in all our most ap- 
proved catechisms. f To be brief : the words, Thou slialt not 
make to thyself any graven thing, are either a prohibition of all 
images, and, of course, those round the bishop's own cathedral, 
that of St. Paul ; of those likewise that are seen upon all exist- 
ing coins, which I am sure he will not agree to ; or else it is a 
mere prohibition of images made to receive divine worship, in 
which we perfectly agree with him. You will observe, dear 
sir, that, among religious memorials, I intend to include relics ; 
meaning things which have, some way, appertained to, and been 
left by, personages of eminent sanctity. Indeed, the ancient 
fathers generally call them by that name. Surely Dr. Porteus 
will not say, that there is no warrant in Scripture fof honoring 
these, when he recollects, that " From the body of St. Paul, 
were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs and aprons, and the 
diseases departed from them," Acts, xix. 12 ; and that, " When 

* St. August. Quaest. in Exod. Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. 6. Hieron. Ps. xxxii. 
t Catech. Roman ad Paroch. The folio Catech. of Montp'elier. Douay 
Catech* Abridgment of Christian Doctrine, 

19 



218 LETTER XXXIV* 

the dead man was let down and touched the bones of Elisha, he 
revived and stood upon his feet." 2 Kings, xiii. 21. 

But to make an end of the present discussion ; nothing but 
the pressing want of a strong pretext for breaking communion 
with the ancient church, could have put the revolters upon so 
extravagant an attempt, as that of confounding the inferior and 
relative honor which Catholics pay to the memorials of Christ 
and his saints, (an honor which they themselves pay to the 
Bible-book, to the name of JESUS, and even to the king's 
throne,) with the idolatry of the Israelites to their golden calf, 
Exod. xxxii. 4, and of the ancient heathens to their idols, which 
they believed to be inhabited by their gods. In a word, the end 
for which pious pictures and images are made and retained by 
Catholics, is the same for which pictures and images are made 
and retained by mankind in general, to put us in mind of the 
persons and things they represent. — They are not primarily in- 
tended for the purpose of being venerated ; nevertheless, as they 
bear a certain relation with holy persons and things, by repre- 
senting them, they become entitled to a relative or secondary 
veneration, in the manner already explained. I must not for- 
get one important use of pious pictures, mentioned by the holy 
fathers, namely, that they help to instruct the ignorant.* Still, 
it is a point agreed upon among Catholic doctors and divines, 
that the memorials of religion form no essential part of it.f 
Hence if you should become a Catholic, as I pray God you may, 
I shall never ask you if you have a pious picture or relic, or so 
much as a crucifix, in your possession : but then, I trust, after 
the declarations I have made, that you will not account me an 
idolater, should you see such things in my oratory or study, or 
should you observe how tenacious I am of my crucifix, in par- 
ticular. Your faith and devotion may not stand in need of such 
memorials ; but mine, alas ! do. I am too apt to forget what 
my Saviour has done and suffered for me ; but the sight of his 
representation often brings this to my memory, and affects my 
best sentiments. Hence I would rather part with most of the 
books in my library, than with the figure of my crucified Lord. 

I am, &c. 

John Milner. 

* St. Gregory calls pictures, Idiotarum lihri. Epist. L. ix. 9. j 
t The learned Petavius says, "We must lay it down as a principle that 
images are to be reckoned among the adiaphora, which do not belong to the sub. 
stance of religion, and w hich the church may retain or take away, as she best 
judges." L. xv. de I near. Hence Dr. Hawarden, of images, p. 353, leaches, 
with Del planus, that, if in any place' there is danger of real idolatry or super- 
stition from pictures, they ought to be removed by the pastor; as St. Epipha. 
nius destroyed a certain pious picture, and Ezechias destroyed the brazen 
ierpent, 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



LETTER XXXV.— TO THE REV. ROBERT CLAYTON, M.A 

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 
Reverend sir— - 

I learn by a letter from our worthy friend, Mr. Brown, as 
well as by your own, that I am i consider you, and not him, as 
the person charged to make the objections which are to be made 
on the part of the Church of England against my theological 
positions and arguments in future. I congratulate the society 
of New Cottage on the acquisition of so valuable a member as 
Mr. Clayton, and I think myself fortunate in having to contend 
With an opponent so clear-headed and candid, as his letter shows 
him to be. 

You admit, that according to my explanation, which is no 
other than that of our divines, our catechisms, and our councils 
in general, we are not guilty of idolatry in the honor we pay to 
saints and their memorials, and that the dispute between your 
church and mine upon these points, is a dispute about words 
rather tha\i about things : as Bishop Bossuet observes, and as 
several candid Protestants, before you, have confessed. You 
and Bishop Porteus agree with us, that. " the saints are to be 
loved and honored :" on the other hand, we agree with you, that 
it would be idolatrous to pay them divine worship, or to pray to 
their memorials in any shape whatever. Hence, the only ques- 
tion remaining between us is concerning the utility of desiring 
the prayers of the saints ; for you say, it is useless, because you 
think that they cannot hear us, and that, therefore, the practice 
is superstitious : whereas I have vindicated the practice itself, 
and have shown that the utility of it no way depends on the cir- 
cumstance of the blessed spirits immediately hearing the ad- 
dresses made to them. 

Still you complain that I have not answered all the bishop's 
objections against the doctrine and practices in question. My 
reply is, that I have answered the chief of them : and whereas 
they are, for the most part, of ancient date, and have been again 
and again solidly refuted by our divines, I shall send to New 
Cottage, together with this letter, a work of one of them, who, 
for depth of learning and strength of argument, has not been 
surpassed since the time of Beliarmin.* There, reverend sir, 
you will find all that you inquire after, and you will discover, 
in particular, that the worship of the angels, which St. Paul con- 
demns in his Epistle to the Colossians, chap. ii. 18, means, that 

* Thr. True Church of Christ, by Edward Hawarden, D.D. S.T.P. The 
author was engaged in successful contests with Dr. Clark, Bishop Bull. Mr» 
Leslie, and other eminent Protestant divines. 



220 



of the fallen or wicked angels, whom Christ despoiled, ver. 15, 
and which was paid to them by Simon the Magician, and his 
followers, as the makers of the world. As to the doctrine of 
Bellarmin concerning images, it is plain that his lordship never 
consulted the author himself, but only his misrepresented Vi- 
tringa : otherwise he would have gathered from the whole of 
this strict theologian's distinctions, that he teaches precisely the 
contrary to that which he is represented to teach.* 

You next observe that I have said nothing concerning the ex- 
travagant forms of prayer, to the Blessed Virgin and other saints, 
which Dr. Porteus has collected from Catholic prayer-books, 
and which, you think, prove that we attribute an absolute and 
unbounded power to those heavenly citizens. I am aware, rev- 
erend sir, that his lordship, as well as another bishop, f who is 
all sweetness of temper, except when Popery is mentioned in 
his hearing, and indeed a crowd of other Protestant Writers, has 
employed himself in making such collections, but from what 
sources, for the greater part, I am ignorant. If I were to charge 
his faith, or the faith of his church, with all the conclusions that 
could logically be drawn from different forms of prayer, to be 
met with in the books of her most distinguished prelates and 
divines, or from the Scriptures themselves, 1 fancy the bishop 
would strongly protest against that mode of reasoning. If, for 
example, an anthropomorphite were to address him : You say, 
my lord, in your creed, that Christ " ascended into heaven, and 
sitteth at the right hand of God," therefore it is plain you be- 
lieve, with me, that God has a human shape ; or if a Calvinist 
were to say to him : You pray to God that he " would not lead 
you into temptation," therefore you acknowledge that it is God 
who tempts you to commit sin : in either of these cases the 
bishop would insist upon explaining the texts here quoted ; he 
would argue on the nature of figures of speech, especially in 
the language of poetry and devotion ; and would maintain, that 
the belief of his church is not to be collected from these, but 
from her defined articles. Make but the same allowance to 
Catholics, and all this phantom of verbal idolatry will dissolve 
into air. 

Lastly, you remind me of the bishop's assertion, that " neither 
images nor pictures were allowed in churches for the first hun- 
dred years." To this assertion you add your own opinion, that 
during that same period, m. prayers were addressed by Chris- 
tians to the saints. A fit of oolivion must have overtaken Dr. 
Porteus, when he wrote what you have quoted from him, as he 

* See De Imag. L. ii. c. 24. 

t The Bishop of Hereford, Dr. Huntingford, who has squeezed a large 
quantity of this irrelevant matter into his Examination of the Catholic Petition 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



221 



could not be ignorant, that it was not till the conversion of Con- 
stantine, in the fourth century, that the Christians were general- 
ly allowed to build churches for their worship, having been ob- 
liged, during the ages of persecution, to practise it in subter- 
raneous catacombs, or other obscure recesses. We learn, 
however, from Tertullian, that it was usual, in his time, to re- 
present our Saviour, in the character of the good Shepherd, on 
the chalices used at the assemblies of the Christians :* and we 
are informed by-Eusebius, the father of church-history, and the 
friend of Constantine, that he himself had seen a miraculous 
image of our Saviour in brass, which had been erected by the 
woman who was cured by touching the hem of his garment ; 
and also different pictures of him, and of St. Peter and St. Paul, 
which had been preserved since their time.f The historian 
Zozomen adds, concerning that statue, that it was mutilated 
during the reign of Julian the i^postate, and that the Christians, 
nevertheless, collected the pieces of it, and placed it in their 
church 4 St. Gregory of Nyssa, who flourished in the fourth 
century, preaching on the martyrdom of St. Theodore, describes 
his relics as being present in the church and his sufferings as 
being painted on the walls, together with an image of Christ, as 
if surveying them.§ It is needless to carry the history of pious 
figures and paintings down to the end of the sixth century, at 
which time St. Augustin and his companions, coming to preach 
the Gospel to our pagan ancestors, " carried a silver cross be- 
fore them as a banner, and a painted picture of our Saviour 
Christ. "|| The above-mentioned Tertullian testifies, that at 
every movement and in every employment, the primitive Chris- 
tians used to sign their foreheads with the sign of the cross ;1T 
and Eusebius and St. Chrysostom fill whole pages of their works 
with testimonies of their veneration in which the figure of the 
cross was anciently held ; the latter expressly says, that the 
cross was placed on the altars** of the churches. The whole 
history of the martyrs, from St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp, the 
disciples of the apostles, whose relics, after their execution, were 
carried away by the Christians, as " more valuable than gold 
and precious stones, "ff down to the latest martyr, incontestibly 
proves the veneration which the church has ever entertained 
for these sacred objects. With respect to your own opinion, 
reverend sir, as to the earliest date of prayers to the saints, I 
may refer you to the writings of St. Irenseus the disciple of St. 

* Lib. de Pudicitia, c. 10. 

t Hist. 1. vii. c. 18. t His. Eccles. I. v. c. 21. 

$ Orat. in Theod. J| Bede's Eccles. Hist. 1. i. c. 25. 

IT Deo. Coron. Milit. c. 3. ** In Orat. Quod. Chris tus sit Deus, 

f t Euseb, Hist, 1. iv. c. J.5. Acta Sincer. apud Ruinart. 

19* 



222 



LETTER XXXVI. 



Polycarp, who introduces the Blessed Virgin praying for Eve ;* 
to the apology of his contemporary St. Justin the martyr, who 
says : " We venerate and worship the angelic host, and the 
spirits of the prophets, teaching others as we ourselves have 
been taught and to the light of the fourth century, St. Basil, 
who expressly refers these practices to the apostles, where he 
says : " I invoke the apostles, prophets, and martyrs to pray 
for me, that God may be merciful to me, and forgive me my 
sins. I honor and reverence their images, since these things 
have been ordained by tradition from the apostles, and are practis- 
ed in all our churches."% You will agree with me, that I need 
not bring down lower than the fourth age of the church, her 
devotion to the saints. — I am, dear sir, &c. 

John Mixnbr. 

LETTER XXXVI. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., 
ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 

Dear sir- 
It is the remark of the prince of modern eontrovertists, Bishop 
Bossuet, that whereas in most other subjects of dispute between 
Catholics and Protestants, the difference is less than it seems to 
be, in this of the holy eucharist or Lord's supper, it is greater 
than it appears. § The cause of this is, that our opponents 
misrepresent our doctrine concerning the veneration of saints, 
pious images, indulgences, purgatory, and other articles, in 
order to strengthen their arguments against us : whereas their 
language approaches nearer to our doctrine than their sentiments 
do on the subject of the eucharist, because our doctrine is so 
strictly conformable to the words of Holy Scripture. This is 
a disingenuous artifice ; but I have to describe two others of a 
still more fatal tendency ; first, with respect to the present wel- 
fare of the Catholics, who are the subjects of them, and secondly, 
with respect to the future welfare of the Protestants, who delib- 
erately make use of them. 

The first of these disingenuous practices consists in misrepre- 
senting Catholics as worshippers of bread and wine in the sacra- 
ment, and therefore as idolaters, at the same time that our ad- 
versaries are perfectly aware that we firmly believe, as an ar- 
ticle of faith, that there is no bread and wine, but Christ alone., 
true God, as well as man, present in it. Supposing, for a mo. 
ment, that we are mistaken in this belief, the worst we could bs 

* Contra Hseres. 1. v. c. J 9. f Apol. 2. prope Init. 

t Epist. 205, T. iii. edit. Paris. 

§ Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church, Sect, XVI, 



TRAUSUBSTANTIATION. 



223 



charged with is an error, in supposing Christ to be where he is 
not ; and nothing but uncharitable calumny, or gross inatten- 
tion, could accuse us of the heinous crime of idolatry. To il- 
lustrate this argument, let me suppose, that being charged with 
a loyal address to the sovereign, you presented it, by mistake, 
to one of his courtiers, or even to an inanimate figure of him, 
which, for some reason or other, had been dressed up in royal 
robes, and placed on the throne : would your heart reproach you, 
or would any sensible person reproach you. with the guilt of 
treason in this case ? Were the people who thought in their 
hearts that John the Baptist was the Christ, Luke iii. 15, and 
who probably worshipped him as such, idolaters, in consequence 
of their error ? The falsehood, as well as the uncharitableness, 
of this calumny is too gross to escape the observation of any 
informed and reflecting man ; yet, in order to keep alive their 
prejudices against us, it is upheld and vociferated to the ignorant 
crowd, by Bishop Porteus* and the Protestant preachers and 
writers in general : while it is perpetuated by the Legislature, 
for the purpose of defeating our civil claims !f It is not how- 
ever true, that all Protestant divines have laid this heavy charge 
at the door of Catholics, for worshipping Christ in the sacrament ; 
as all those eminent prelates in the reigns of Charles I. and II. 
must be excepted, who generally acquitted us of the charge of 
idolatry, and more especially the learned Gunning, Bishop of 
Ely, who reprobated the above signified declaration, when it 
was brought into the house of lords, protesting that his con- 
science would not permit him to make it.T The candid Thorn- 
dyke, Prebendary of Westminster, argues thus on the present 
subject : " Will any papist acknowledge that he honors the ele- 
ments of the eucharist for God ? Will common sense charge 
him with honoring that in the sacrament which he does not 
believe to be there ?' ; § The celebrated Bishop of Down, Dr. 
Jeremy Taylor, reasons with equal fairness, where he says, 
" the object of their (the Catholics') adoration in the sacrament 
is the only true and eternal God, hypostatically united with his 
holy humanity, which humanity they believe actually present 
under the veil of the sacrament. And if they thought him not 

* He charges Catholics with u senseless idolatry," and with " worshipping 
the creature instead of the Creator." Confut. P. ii. c. 1. 

t The declaration against popery, by which Catholics were excluded from 
the houses of Parliament, was voted by them during that rime of national 
frenzy and disgrace, when they equally voted the realiiy of the pretended 
popish plot, which cost the Catholics a torrent of innocent blood, and which 
was hatched by the unprincipled Shaftesbury, with the help of Dr. Tongue 
and the infamous Oates, to prevent the succession of James II. to the crown. 
See Echard's Hist. Nonh's Exam. 

t Burnet's Hist, Own Times, § J 1131 Weights and Measures, c. 19 



224 



LETTER XXXVI. 



present, they are so far from worshipping the bread, that they 
profess it idolatry to do so. This is demonstration that the soul 
has nothing in it that is idolatrical ; the will has nothing in it, 
but what is a great enemy to idolatry."* 

The other instance of disingenuity and injustice on the part 
of Protestant divines and statesmen, consists in their overlook- 
ing the main subject in debate, namely, whether Christ is or is not 
really and personally present in the sacrament ; and in the mean 
time directing all the force of their declamation and ridicule, 
and all the severity of the law to a point of inferior, or at least 
secondary consideration ; namely, to the mode in which he is 
considered by one particular party as being present. It is well 
known that Catholics believe, that when Christ took the bread 
and gave it to his apostles, saying, THIS IS MY BODY, he 
changed the bread into his body, which change is called tran- 
substantiation. On the other hand, " the Lutherans, after their 
master, hold that the bread and the real body of Christ are uni- 
ted, and both truly present in the sacrament, as iron and fire are 
united in a red-hot bar."f — This sort of presence, which would 
be not less miraculous and incomprehensible than transubstan- 
tiation, is called consubstantiation ; while the Calvinists and 
Church of England men in general (though many of the bright- 
est luminaries of the latter have approached to the Catholic 
doctrine) maintain that Christ is barely present in figure, and 
received only by faith. Now all the alleged absurdities, in a 
manner, and all the pretended impiety and idolatry, which are 
attributed to transubstantiation, equally attach to consubstcm- 
tiation and to the real presence professed by those eminent di- 
vines of the Established Church. Nevertheless, what controver- 
sial preacher or writer ever attacks the latter opinions ? What 
law excludes Lutherans from Parliament, or even from the 
throne ? So far from this, a chapel royal has been founded and 
is maintained in the palace itself, for the propagation of their 
consubstantiation and the participation of the real presence ! In 
short, you may say with Luther, the bread is the body of Christ, 
or with Osiander, the bread is one and the same person with Christ, 
or with Bishop Cosin, that " Christ is present really and sub- 
stantially by an incomprehensible mystery,"± or with Dr. Bal- 
guy, that there is no mystery at all, but a mere " federal rite, 
barely signifying the receiver's acceptance of the benefit of re- 
demption. 3 ^ In short, you may say any thing you please con- 

* Liberty of Prophesying, Sect. 20. 

t De Capt. Babyl. Osiander, whose sister Cranmer married, taught impa, 
nation, or an hypostatical and personal union of the bread with Christ's body, 
in consequence of which a person might truly say, This bread is Christ's 
body, t Hist, of Transub. p, 44= § Charge vii, 



THE SEAL PRESENCE. 



225 



cerning the eucharist, without obloquy or inconvenience to your- 
self, except what the words of Christ, this is my body, so clean 
ly imply, namely, that he changes the bread into his body. In 
fact, as the Bishop of Meaux observes, " the declarations of 
Christ operate what they express; when he speaks, nature 
obeys, and he does what he says : thus he cured the ruler's 
son, by saying to him, Thy son liveih ; and the crooked woman, 
by saying, Thou art loosed from thy infirmity * The prelate 
adds, for our further observation, that Christ did not say, My 
body is here ; this contains my body : but, this is my body ; this 
is my blood. Hence Zuinglius, Calvin, Beza, and the defenders 
of the figurative sense in general, all, except the Protestants of 
England, have expressly confessed, that admitting the real pre- 
sence, the Catholic doctrine is far more conformable to Scripture 
than the Lutheran. I shall finish this letter with remarking, 
that as transubstantiation, according to Bishop Cosin, was the 
first of Christ's miracles, in changing water into wine ; so it 
may be said to have been his last, during his mortal course, by 
changing bread and wine into his sacred body and blood. 

I am, dear sir, yours, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XXXVII. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. 

ON THE REAL PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE 
BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

Dear sir- 
It is clear, from what I have stated in my last letter to you, 
that the first and main question to be settled between Catholics 
and Church Protestants is, concerning the real or figurative pre- 
sence of Christ in the sacrament. This being determined, it 
will be time enough, and, in my opinion, it will not require a 
long time, to conclude upon the manner of his presence, namely, 
whether by consubstantiation or transubstantiation. To con- 
sider the authorized exposition or catechism of the Established 
Church, it might appear certain that she herself holds the real 
presence, since she declares that, " The body and blood of Christ 
are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the 
'Lord's supper.'" To this declaration I alluded, in the first 
place, where I complained of Protestants disguising their real 
tenets, by adopting language of a different meaning from their 
own sentiments, and conformable to the sentiments of Catholics, 



* Variat. T. ii. p. 34. 



226 



LETTER XXXVII. 



in consequence of such being the language of the sacred text. 
In fact, it is certain and confessed that she does not, after all, 
believe the real body and blood to be in the supper, but mere 
bread and wine, as the same catechism declares. This involves 
an evident contradiction ; it is saying, you receive that in the sa- 
crament, which does not exist in the sacrament :* it is like the 
speech of a debtor, who should say to his creditor, / hereby ver- 
ily and indeed pay you the money I owe you ; but I have not verily 
and indeed the money wherewith to pay you. 

Nothing proves more clearly the fallacy of the Calvinists and 
other dissenters, as likewise of the established churchmen in 
general, who profess to make the Scripture, in its plain and lit- 
eral sense, the sole rule of their faith, than their denial of the 
real presence of Christ in the sacrament, which is so manifestly 
and emphatically expressed therein. He explained and prom- 
ised this divine mystery near the time of the Passover, (John, 
vi. 4,) previous to his institution of it. He then multiplied five 
loaves and two fishes, so as to afford a superabundant meal to 
five thousand men, besides women and children, (Matt. xiv. 21,) 
which was an evident sign of the future multiplication of his 
own person on the several altars of the world ; after which, he 
took occasion to speak of this mystery, by saying : " I am the 
living bread, which came down from heaven. If any man eat 

* Dryden, in his Hind and Panther, ridicules this inconsistency as follows : 

" The literal sense is hard to flesh and blood ; 
But nonsense never could be understood." 

Even Dr. Hey calls this " an unsteadiness of language and a seeming incon- 
sistency." Lect. vol. iv. p. 338. 

N. B. It is curious to trace, in the Liturgy of the Established Church, her va- 
riations on this most important point of Christ's presence in the sacrament. 
The first Communion Service, drawn up by Cranmer, Ridley, and other Pro- 
testant bishops and divines, and published in 1548, clearly expresses the real 
presence, and that " the whole body of Christ is received under each particle 
of the sacrament." Burnet, p. ii. B. 1. 

Afterwards, when the Calvinist party prevailed, the 29th of the 42 Articles 
of religion, drawn up by the same prelates, and published in 1552, expressly 
denies the real presence, and the very possibility of Christ's being in the eu- 
charist, since he has ascended up to heaven. Ten years afterwards, Eliza- 
beth being on the throne, who patronized the real presence, (see Heylin, p. 
124,) when the 42 Articles were reduced to 39, this declaration, against the 
real and corporeal presence of Christ, was left out of the Common Prayer 
Book, for the purpose of comprehending those persons who believed in it, as 
was also the whole of the former rubric, which explained that," by kneeling 
at the sacrament no adoration was intended to any corporeal presence of 
Christ's natural flesh and blood." Burnet, P. ii. p. 392. So the Liturgy 
stood for just sue Hundred years, when in 1662, during the reign of Charles 
II., among a .er alterations of the Liturgy which then took place, the old 
rubric agairst fne real presence and the adoration of the sacrament was again 
restored as it stands at present ! 



THE HEAL PRESENCE. 



227 



of this bread, he shall live for ever : and the bread that I will 
give, is my flesh, for the life of the world." John, vi. 51. The 
sacred text goes on to inform us of the perplexity of the Jews, 
from their understanding Christ's words in their plain and natu- 
ral sense, which he, so far from removing by a different expla- 
nation, confirms by expressing that sense in other terms still 
more emphatical. " The Jews therefore strove amongst them- 
selves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat ? Then 
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, Fsay unto you, except ye 
eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have 
no life in you. — For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is 
drink indeed." Verses 52, 53, 55. Nor was it the multitude 
alone who took offence at this mystery of a real and corporeal 
reception of Christ's person, so energetically and repeatedly 
expressed by him, but also several of his own beloved disciples, 
whom certainly he would not have permitted to desert him to 
their own destruction, if he could have removed their difficulty 
by barely telling them, that they were only to receive him by 
faith, and to take bread and wine in remembrance of him. Yet 
this merciful Saviour permitted them to go their way, and con- 
tented himself with asking the apostles, if they would also leave 
him ? They were as incapable of comprehending the mystery 
as the others were ; but they were assured that Christ is ever 
to be credited upon his word, and accordingly they made that 
generous act of faith, which every true Christian will also make, 
who seriously and devoutly considers the sacred text before us. 
" Many, therefore, of his disciples, when they had heard this, 
said, This is a hard saying : who can hear it ? — From that time 
many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. 
Then Jesus said to the twelve, Will ye also go away ? Then 
Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou 
hast the words of eternal life." Verses 60, 66, 67, 68, 69. 

The apostles, thus instructed by Christ's express and repeated 
declaration, as to the nature of this sacrament, when he prom- 
ised it to them, were prepared for the sublime simplicity of his 
words in the instituting it. For, whilst they were at supper, Jesus 
took bread and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, 
and said, Take ye and eat : THIS IS MY BODY. And taking 
the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Brink ye 
all of this; FOR THIS IS MY BLOOD OF THE NEW 
TESTAMENT, WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR MANY 
UNTO THE REMISSION OF SINS. Matt. xxvi. 26, 27, 28. 
This account of St. Matthew is repeated by St. Mark, xiv. 22, 
23, 24, and nearly word for word by St. Luke, xxii. 19, 20, and 
by St. Paul, 1 Cor. xi. 23, 24, 25, who adds : " Wherefore, who- 
soever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lor^ 



228 



LETTER XXXVII. 



unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord— 
and eateth and drinketh judgment (the Protestant Bible says, 
damnation) to himself." 1 Cor. xi. 27, 29. To the native evi- 
dence of these texts I shall add but two words. First, supposing 
it possible that Jesus Christ had deceived the Jews of Caphar- 
naum, and even his disciples and his very apostles, in the sol- 
emn asseverations which he, six times over, repeated of his real 
and corporeal presence in the sacrament, when he promised to 
institute it, can any one believe that he would continue the 
deception on his dear apostles, in the very act of instituting it, 
and when he w T as on the point of leaving them ? In short, when 
he was bequeathing them the legacy of his love 1 In the next 
place, what propriety is there in St. Paul's heavy denunciations 
of profaning Christ's person, and of damnation, on the part of 
unworthy communicants, if they partook of it only by faith and 
in figure? For, after all, the paschal lamb, which the people 
of God had, by his command, every year eaten, since their de- 
liverance out of Egypt, and which the apostles themselves eat, 
before they received the blessed eucharist, was, as a mere figure 
and an incitement to faith, far more striking than eating and 
drinking bread and wine are. Hence the guilt of profaning the 
paschal lamb, and the numerous other figures of Christ, would 
not be less heinous than profaning the sacrament, if he were.not 
really there. 

I should write a huge folio volume, were I to transcribe all 
the authorities in proof of the real presence and transubstantia- 
tion which may be collected from the ancient fathers, councils, 
and historians, anterior to the origin of these doctrines, assigned 
by the Bishops of London* and Lincoln. The latter, who speaks 
more precisely on the subject, says : " The idea of Christ's 
bodily presence in the eucharist was first started in the begin- 
ning of the eighth century. In the twelfth century, the actual 
change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, 
by the consecration of the priest, was pronounced to be a gospel 
truth. The first writer who maintained it, was Paschasius Rad- 
bert. It is said to have been brought into England by Lan- 
franc."f What will the learned men of Europe, who are versed 
in ecclesiastical literature, think of the state of this science in 
England, should they hear that such positions as these have 
been published by one of its most celebrated prelates ? I have 
assigned the cause why I must content myself with a few of the 
numberless documents which present themselves to me in refu- 
tation of such bold assertions. St. Ignatius, then, an apostolical 
oishop of the first century, describing certain contemporary 

* Page 38. t Elm. of Theol. vol. ii. p. 380. 



THE REAL PRESENCE. 



229 



heretics, says : " They do not admit of eucharists and oblations, 
because they do not believe the eucharist to be the flesh of our 
Saviour Jesus Christ, who suffered for our sins."* I pass over 
the testimonies, to the same effect, of St. Justin Martyr,! St. 
Irenaeus4 St. Cyprian, § and other fathers of the second and 
third centuries, but will quote the following words from Origen, 
because the prelate appeals to his authority in another passage, 
which is nothing at all to the purpose. He says, then, " Manna 
was formerly given as'-a figure ; but now, the flesh and blood 
of the Son of God is specifically given, and is real food. JJ || I 
must omit the clear and beautiful testimonies for the Catholic 
doctrine, which St. Hilary, St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. 
Jerom, St. Augustin, and a number of other illustrious doctors 
of the fourth and fifth ages, furnish ; but I cannot pass over 
those of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and St. Ambrose of Milan, be- 
cause these, occurring in catechetical discourses or expositions 
of the Christian doctrine to their young neophytes, must evidently 
be understood in the most plain and literal sense they can bear. 
The former says: " Since Christ himself affirms thus of the 
bread, This is my body, who is so daring as to doubt of it ? And 
since he affirms, This is my Hood, who will deny that it is his 
blood ? At Cana of Galilee, he, by an act of his will, turned 
water into wine, which resembles blood ; and is he not then to 
be credited when he changes wine into blood ? Therefore, full 
of certainty, let us receive the body and blood of Christ ; for, 
under the form of bread, is given to thee his body, and, under 
the form of wine, his blood. "IT St. Ambrose thus argues with 
his spiritual children : " Perhaps you will say, Why do you tell 
me that I receive the body of Christ, when I see quite another 
thing? We have this point, therefore, to prove. How many 
examples do we produce to show you, that this is not what na- 
ture made it, but what the benediction has consecrated it; and 
that the benediction is of greater force than nature, because, by 
the benediction, nature itself is changed ! Moses cast his rod 
on the ground, and it became a serpent ; he caught hold of the 
serpent's tail, and it recovered the nature of a rod. The rivers 
of Egypt, &c. — Thou hast read of the creation of the world : if 
Christ, by his word, was able to make something out of nothing;, 
shall he not be thought able to change one thing; into another 
But I have quoted enough from the ancient fathers to refute the 
rash assertions of the two modern bishops. 

True it is, that Paschasius Radbert, an abbot of the ninth 
century, writing a treatise on the eucharist, for the instruction 

* Ep. ad Smyrn. t Apolog. to Emp. Antonin. t L. v. c. 11. 

§ Ep. 54 ad Cornel. || Horn. 7, in Levit. IT Catech. Mystagog. 4 
»* De his qui Myst. Init. c. 9. 

20 



230 



LETTER XXXVII. 



of his novices, maintains the real corporeal presence of Christ 
in it ; but so far from teaching a novelty, he professes to say 
nothing but what all the world believes and professes.* — The 
truth of this appears when Berengarius, in the eleventh century, 
among other errors, denied the real presence ; for then the 
whole church rose up against him ; he was attacked by a whole 
host of eminent writers, and among others by our Archbishop 
Lanfranc ; all of whom, in their respective works, appeal to 
the belief of all nations ; and Berengarius was condemned in no 
less than eleven councils. I have elsewhere shown the abso- 
lute impossibility, that the Christians of all the nations in the 
world should be persuaded into a belief that the sacrament, 
which they were in the habit of receiving, was the living Christ, 
if they had before held it to be nothing but an inanimate memo- 
rial of him : even though, by another impossibility, all the 
clergy of the nations were to combine together for effecting this. 
On the other hand, it is incontestible, and has been carried to 
the highest degree of moral evidence,f that all the Christians of 
all the nations of the world, Greeks as well as Latins, Africans 
as well as Europeans, except Protestants and a handful of Vau- 
dois peasants, have, in all ages, believed and still believe in the 
real presence and transubstantiation. 

I am now, dear sir, about to produce evidence of a different 
nature, I mean Protestant evidence, for the main point under 
consideration, the real presence. My first witness is no other 
than the father of the pretended Reformation, Martin Luther 
himself. He tells us how very desirous he was, and how much 
he labored in his mind to overthrow this doctrine, because, says 
he, (observe his motive,) " I clearly saw how much I should 
thereby injure Popery : but I found myself caught, without any 
way of escaping ; for the text of the gospel was too plain for 
this purpose.":}: Hence he continued, till his death, to con- 
demn those Protestants who denied the corporeal presence ; em- 
ploying for thisj purpose, sometimes the shafts of his coarse ridi- 
cule,§ and sometimes the thunder of his vehement declamation 

* " Quod totus orbis credit et confitetur." See Perpetuite de la Foi. 

t See in particular the last-named victorious work, which has proved the 
conversion of many Protestants, and among the rest that of a distinguished 
churchman now living. 

i Epist. ad. argenten, torn. 4, fol. 502, Ed. Witten. 

§ In one place, he says, that " The devil seems to have mocked those, to 
whom he has suggested a heresy so ridiculous and contrary to Scripture as 
that of the Zuinglians," who explained away the words of the institution in 
a figurative sense. He elsewhere compares these glosses with the following 
translation of the first words of Scripture : In principio Deus creavit caelum 
et terram :—In the beginning the cuckoo eat the sparrow and his feathers. 
Defens. Verb. Dam. 



THE REAL PRESENCE. 



231 



and anathemas.* To speak now of former eminent bishops 
and divines of the Establishment in this country ; it is evident 
from their works, that many of them believed firmly in the 
real presence, such as the Bishops Andrews, Bilson, Morton, 
Laud, Montague, Sheldon, Gunning, Forbes, Bramhall, and 
Cosin, to whom I shall add the justly esteemed Hooker ; the 
testimonies of whom, for the real presence, are as explicit as 
Catholics themselves can wish them to be. I will transcribe in the 
margin a few words from each of the three last-named authors. f 
The near, or rather close approach, of these and other eminent 
Protestant divines, to the constant doctrine of the Catholic 
Church, on this principal subject of modern controversy, is evi- 
dently to be ascribed to the perspicuity and force of the declara- 
tion of Holy Scripture concerning it. As to the holy fathers, they 
received this, with her other doctrines, from the apostles, inde- 
pendently of Scripture : for, before even St. Matthew's gospel 
was promulgated, the sacrifice of the mass was celebrated, and 
the body and blood of Christ distributed to the faithful through- 
out a great part of the known world. 

In finishing this letter, I must make an important remark on 
he object or end of the institution of the blessed sacrament. 
This, our divine Master tells us. was to communicate a new and 
special grace, or life, as he calls it, to us his disciples of the 
new lav.-. " The bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life 
of the world. As the living Father has sent me, and I live by 

* On one occasion he calls those who deny the real and corporeal pres- 
ence, " A damned sect, lying heretics, bread-breakers, wine-drinkers, and 
soul-destroyers." In Parv. Catech. On other occasions he says, " They are 
indevilized and superdevilized." Finally he devotes them to everlasting 
flames, and builds his own hopes of finding mercy at the tribunal of Christ 
on his having, with all his soul, condemned Carlostad, Zuinglius, and other 
believers in the symbolical presence. 

t Bishop Bramhall writes thus: "No genuine son of the Church (of Eng- 
land) did ever deny a true, real presence. — Christ said, This is my body, 
and what he said we steadfastly believe. He said neither CON nor SUB 
nor TRANS : therefore we place these among the opinions of schools, not 
among articles of faith." Answer to Militaire, p. 74. — Bishop Cosin is not 
less explicit in favor of the Catholic doctrine. He says, (* It is a monstrous 
error to deny that Christ is to be adored in the eucharist. We confess the 
necessity of a supernatural and heavenly change, and that the signs cannot 
become sacraments but by the infinite power of God. If any one make a 
bare figure of the sacrament, we ought not to suffer him in our churches." 
Hist, of Transub. Lastly, the profound Hooker expresses himself thus: "I 
wish men would give themselves more to meditate, with silence, on what we 
have in the sacrament, and less to dispute of the manner how. Since we all 
agree that Christ, by the sacrament, doth really and truly perform in us his 
promise, why do we so vainly trouble ourselves with so fierce contentions, 
whether by consubstantiation or else by transubstantiation ?" Eccles. Polit, 
B. v. 67. 



232 



LETTER XXXVII. 



the Father, so he that eateth me, the same shall also live by me, 
This is the bread that came down from heaven : not as your fa- 
thers did eat manna, and are dead ; he that eateth this bread 
shall live for ever." John vi. 52, 58, 59. He explains, in the 
same passage, the particular nature of this spiritual life, and 
shows in what it consists, namely, in an intimate union with 
him ; where he says, " He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh 
my blood, abideth in me, and I in him." Ver. 57. Now the 
servants of God, from the beginning of the world, had striking 
figures and memorials of the promised Messiah, the participation 
of which, by faith and devotion, was, in a limited degree, bene- 
ficial to their souls. Such were the tree of life, the various 
sacrifices of the patriarchs, and those of the Mosaic law ; but 
more particularly the paschal lamb, the loaves of proposition, 
and the manna of which Christ here speaks : still, these signs, 
in their very institution, were so many promises, on the part of 
God, that he would bestow upon his people the thing signified 
by them ; even his incarnate Son, who is at once our victim and 
our food, and who gives spiritual life to the worthy communi- 
cants, not in a limited measure, but indefinitely, according to 
each one's preparation. The same tender love which made him 
shroud the rays of his Divinity, and take upon himself the form 
of a servant, and the likeness of man, in his incarnation ; which 
made him become as a worm and not a man, the reproach of men 
and the outcast of the people, in his immolation on Mount Cal- 
vary, has caused him to descend a step lower, and to conceal his 
human nature also, under the veils of our ordinary nourishment, 
that thus we may be able to salute him with our mouths, and lodge 
him in our breasts, in order that we may thus, each one of us, 
abide in him, and he abide in us, for the life of our souls. No 
wonder that Protestants, who are strangers to these heavenly 
truths, and who are still immersed in the clouds of types and 
figures, not pretending to any thing more in their sacrament, 
than what the Jews possessed in their ordinances, should be 
comparatively so indifferent, as to the preparation for receiving 
it, and, indeed, as to the reception of it at all ! No wonder that 
many of them, and amongst the rest, Anthony Ulric, ? Duke of 
Brunswick,* should have reconciled themselves to the Catholic 
Church, chiefly for the benefit of exchanging the figure for the 
substance ; the bare memorial of Christ, for his adorable body 
and blood. — I am, dear sir, &c. 

John Milner. 
* Lettres d'un Docteur Allemand, par Scheffmacker, vol. i. p. 393. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



233 



LETTER XXXVIII. — TO THE REV. ROBERT CLAYTON, M. A. 

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 

Reverend sir — 

Though I had not received the letter with which you have 
honored me, it was my intention to write to Mr. Brown, by way 
of answering Bishop Porteus's objections against the Catholic 
doctrine of the blessed eucharist. As you, reverend sir, have 
in some manner adopted those objections, I address my answer 
to you. 

You begin with the bishop's arguments from Scripture, and 
say, that the same Divine Personage who says, Take, eat, this 
is my body, elsewhere calls himself a door, and a vine : hence you 
argue, that as the two latter terms are metaphorical, so the first 
is also. I grant that Christ makes use of metaphors, when he 
calls himself a door and a vine ; but then he explains that they 
are metaphors, by saying, " I am the door of the sheep : by me 
if any man enter he shall be saved." John, x. 9. And again, 
"I am the vine, you the branches; he that abideth in me, and 
I in him, beareth much fruit ; for without me you can do no- 
thing." John, xv. 5. But, in the institution of the sacrament, 
though he was then making his last will, and bequeathing that 
legacy to his children, which, in his promise of it, he had as- 
sured them should be meat indeed and drink indeed, not a word 
falls from him to signify that his legacy is not to be understood 
in the plain sense of the terms he makes use of. Hence those 
incredulous Christians who insist on allegorizing the texts in 
question, (professing at the same time to make the plain, natural 
sense of Scripture their only rule of faith,) may allegorize every 
other part of Holy Writ as ridiculously as Luther had transla- 
ted the first words of Genesis, and thus gain no certain know- 
ledge from any part of it. 

His lordship adds, that the apostles did not understand this 
institution literally, as they asked no questions, nor expressed 
any surprise concerning it. True, they did not, but then they 
had been present on a former occasion, at a scene in which the 
Jews, and even many of the disciples, expressed great surprise 
at the annunciation of this mystery, and asked, How can this 
man give us his jiesh to eat? On that occasion, we know that 
Christ tried the faith of his apostles as to this mystery, when 
they generously answered, Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou 
hast the words of eternal life. 

You may quote, after Dr. Porteus, Christ's answer to the 
murmur of the Jews on this subject. " Doth this offend you ? 
If then you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was 

20* 



234 



LETTER XXXVIII. 



before 1 It is the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth 
nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and 
life." John, vi. 63, 64. To this I answer, that if there were 
an apparent contradiction between this passage and those others 
in the same chapter, in which Christ so expressly affirms, that 
his Jiesh is meat indeed, and his blood drink indeed, it would 
only prove more clearly the necessity of inquiring into the doc- 
trine of the Catholic Church concerning them. But there is no 
such appearance of contradiction : on the contrary, our contro- 
vertists draw an argument from the first part of this passage in 
favor of the real presence.* The utmost that can be deduced 
from the remaining part is, that Christ's inanimate flesh, man- 
ducated, like that of animals, according to the gross idea of the 
Jews, would not confer the spiritual life which he speaks of, 
though some of the fathers understand these words, not of the 
body and blood of Christ, but of our unenlightened natural reason, 
in contradistinction to inspired faith ; in which sense Christ says 
to St. Peter, " Blessed art thou, because flesh and blood has not 
revealed this to thee, but my Father who is in heaven." Matt, 
xvi. 17. You add from St. Luke, that Christ says in the very 
institution, "Do this in memory of me." Luke, xxii. 19. I 
answer, that neither here is there any contradiction ; for the 
eucharist is both a memorial of Christ and the real presence 
of Christ. When a person stands visibly before us, we have 
no need of any sign to call him to our memory ; but if he were 
present, in such a manner to be concealed from all our senses, 
we might, without a memorial of him, as easily forget him, as 
if he were at a great distance from us. These words of Christ, 
then, which we always repeat at the consecration, and the very 
sight of the sacramental species, serve for this purpose. 

The objection, however, which you, reverend sir, and Bishop 
Porteus, chiefly insist upon, is the testimony of our senses. 
You both say, the bread and wine are seen, and touched, and 
tasted in our sacrament, the same as in yours. " If we cannot 
believe our senses," the bishop says, " we can believe nothing." 
This was a good popular topic for Archbishop Tillotson, from 
whom it is borrowed, to flourish upon in the pulpit ; but it will 
not stand the test of Christian theology — it would undermine the 
incarnation itself. With equal reason the Jews said of Christ, 
" Is not this the carpenter's son ? Is not his mother called 
Mary?" Matt. xiii. 55. Hence they concluded he was not 
what he proclaimed himself to be, the Son of God. In like 
manner Joshua thought he saw a man, (Joshua, v. 13,) and Ja- 
cob that he touched one, (Gen. xxxii. 24,) and Abraham that 

* Veritd de la Relig. Cat. prouv€e par l'Ecriture, par M. Des Mahi. p. 163, 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



235 



he eat with three men, (Gen. xviii. 8,) when, in all these in- 
stances, there were no real men, but unbodied spirits present, 
the different senses of those patriarchs misleading th.°m. Again, 
were not the eyes of the disc -ph s, going to Emmdus, held so that 
they should not know Jesus ? Luke, xxiv. 16. Did not the same 
thing happen to Mary Magdalen and the apostles ? John, xx. 
15. But, independently of Scripture, philosophy and experience 
show that there is no essential connection between our sensations 
and the objects which occasion them, and that, in fact, each of 
our senses frequently deceive us. How unreasonable then is 
it, as well as impious, to oppose their fallible testimony to God's 
infallible word !* 

But the bishop, as you remind me, undertakes to show that 
there are absurdities and contradictions in the doctrine of Iran- 
substantiation — he ought to have said of the real presence — for 
every one of his alleged contradictions is equally found in the 
Lutheran consubstantiation, in the belief of which our gracious 
queen was educated, and in the corporeal presence, held by so 
many English bishops. He accordingly asks, how Christ's 
body can be contracted into the space of a host ? How it can 
be at the right hand of his Father in heaven, and upon our 
altars at the same time, &c. ? I answer, first, with an ancient 
father, that if we insist on using this HOW of the Jews, with 
respect to the mysteries revealed in Scripture, we must renounce 
our faith in it ?f Secondly, I answer, that we do not know what 
constitutes the essence of matter and of space. I say, thirdly, 
that Christ transfigured his body on Mount Thabor, (Mark, ix. 
1,) bestowing on it. many properties of a spirit, before his pas- 
sion ; and that after he had ascended up to heaven, he appeared 
to St. Paul on the road to Damascus, (Acts, ix. 17,) and stood 
by him in the castle of Jerusalem. Acts, xxiii. 11. Lastly, I 
answer, that God fills all space, and is whole and entire in ev- 
ery particle of matter ; likewise, that my own soul is in my 
right hand and in my left, whole and entire ; that the bread 
and wine, which I eat and drink, are transubstantiated into my 
own flesh and blood ; that this body of mine, which some years 
ago was of a small size, has now increased to its present bulk ; 
that soon it will turn into dust, or perhaps be devoured by ani- 

* For example, we think we see the setting sun in a line with our 
eyes ; but philosophy demonstrates that a large portion of the terraqueous 
globe is interposed between them, and that the sun is considerably below the 
horizon. As we trust more to our feeling than any other sense, let any per- 
son cause his neighbor to shut his eyes, and then crossing the two first fin- 
gers of either hand, make him rub a pea, or any other round substance be- 
tween them, he will then protest that he feels tivo such objects. 

t Cyril. Alex. 1. 4, in Joan, 



236 



LETTER XXXIX. 



mals or cannibals, and thus become part of their substance ; and 
that, nevertheless, God will restore it entire at the last day. 
Whoever will enter into these considerations, instead of employ- 
ing the Jewish HOW, will be disposed, with St. Augustin, to 
" admit that God can do much more than we can understand," 
and to cry out with the apostles, respecting this mystery, Lord, 
to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life. 

I am, dear sir, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XXXIX. — TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. 

COMMUNION UNDER ONE KIND. 
Dear sir — 

I trust you have not forgotten what I demonstrated in the 
first part of our correspondence, that the Catholic Church was 
formed and instructed in its divine doctrine and rites, and espe- 
cially in its sacraments and sacrifice, before any part of the New 
Testament was published, and whole centuries before the entire 
New Testament was collected and pronounced by her to be 
authentic and inspired. Indeed, Protestants are forced to have 
recourse to the tradition of the church for determining a great 
number of points, which are left doubtful by the Sacred Text, 
particularly with respect to the two sacraments which they ac- 
knowledge. From the doctrine and practice of the church alone 
they learn that, although Christ, our pattern, was baptized in a 
river, (Mark, i. 9,) and the Ethiopian eunuch was led by St. 
Philip into the water, (Acts, viii. 38,) -for the same purpose, the 
application of it, by infusion or aspersion, is valid ; and that, 
although Christ says, He that BELIEVETH and is baptized 
shall be saved, (Mark, xvi. 16,) infants are susceptible of the 
benefits of baptism, who are incapable of making an act of faith. 
In like manner respecting the eucharist, it is from the doctrine 
and practice of the church alone Protestants learn, that, though 
Christ communicated the apostles, at an evening supper, after 
they had feasted on a lamb, and their feet had been washed, a 
ceremony which he appears to enjoin on that occasion with the 
utmost strictness, (John, xiii. 8, 15,) none of these rites are es- 
sential to that ordinance, or necessary to be practised at present. 
With what pretension to consistency, then, can they reject her 
doctrine and practice in the remaining particulars of this mys- 
terious institution ? A clear exposition of the institution itself, 
and of the doctrine and discipline of the church, concerning the 
controversy in question, will afford the best answer to the objec- 
tions raised against the latter. 



CoMMTJNtON UNDER ONE KINS* 



237 



It is true that our blessed Saviour instituted the holy eucha- 
rist, under two kinds ; but it must be observed, that he then 
made it a sacrifice as well as a sacrament, and that he ordained 
priests, namely his twelve apostles, (for none else but they were 
present on the occasion,) to consecrate this sacrament, and offer 
this sacrifice. Now, for the latter purpose, namely, a sacrifice, 
it was requisite that the victim should be really present, and, at 
least, mystically immolated ; which was then, and is still per- 
formed in the mass, by the symbolical disunion, or separate 
consecration of the body and the blood. It was requisite, also, 
for the completion of the sacrifice, that the priests, who had im- 
molated the victim, by mystically separating its body and its 
blood, should consummate it in both these kinds. Hence it is 
seen, that the command of Christ, on which our opponents lay 
so much stress, drink ye all of this, regards the apostles, as 
priests, and not the laity, as communicants.* True it is, that 
when Christ promised this sacrament to the faithful in general, 
he promised, in express terms, both his body and his blood, John 
vi. : but this does not imply that they must, therefore, receive 
them under the different appearances of bread and wine. For, 
?.s the Council of Trent teaches, he who said : " Unless you 
shall eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you 
shall not have life in you," has likewise said, " If anyone shall 
eat of this bread, he shall live forever." And he who has said 
" Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath life ever- 
lasting," has also said, " The bread which I will give is my 
flesh, for the life of the world." And lastly, he who has said, 
"He who eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in 
me, and I in him," has nevertheless said, " He who eateth this 
bread shall live for ever."f 

The truth is, dear sir, after all the reproaches of the Bishop 
of Durham, concerning our alleged sacrilege, in suppressing 
half a sacrament, and the general complaint of Protestants, of 
our rolling the laity of the cup of salvation, :[: that the precious 
body and blood, being equally and entirely present, under each 
species, is equally and entirely given to the faithful, whichever 
they receive; whereas the Calvinists and Anglicans do not so 

* The acute apologist of the Quakers has observed, how inconclusively 
Protestants argje from the words of the institution. He says, " I would 
gludly know how from the words they can be certainly resolved that these 
word.s {Do this) must be understood of the clergy: Take, bless, and break 
this bread, and give it to ohers ; but fo the lai'.y only : Take and eat, but do 
not bless," &c. — Barclay's Apology, Prop. xiii. p. 7. t Sess xxi. c. 1. 

X Conformably to the above doctrine, neither our priests nor our bishops 
receive under more than one kind, when they do not offer up the holy sac= 
rifice- 



much as pretend to communicate either the real body or the 
blood, but present mere types or memorials of them. I do not 
deny, that in their mere figurative system, there may be some 
reason for receiving the liquid as well as the solid substance, 
since the former may appear to represent more aptly the blood, 
and the latter, .the body; but to us, Catholics, who possess the 
reality of them both, their species or outward appearance is no 
more than a matter of changeable discipline. 

It is the sentiment of the great lights of the church, St. Chry- 
sostom, St. Augustin, St. Jerome, &c, and seems clear from the 
text, that when Christ, on the day of his resurrection, took bread, 
and blessed and brake, and gam it to Cleophas and the other 
disciple, whose guest he was at Emmaus, on his doing which 
their eyes were opened, and they knevj him, and he vanished out of 
their sight," Luke xxiv. 30, 31, he administered the holy com- 
munion to them under the form of bread alone. In like man- 
ner, it is written of the baptized converts of Jerusalem, that, 
they were persevering in the doctrine of the apostles, and in the 
communication of the BREAKING OF BREAD, and in 
prayer, Acts ii. 42 ; and of the religious meeting at Troas ; on 
the first day of the week, when we were assembled to BREAK 
BREAD, Acts xx. 7, without any mention of the other species. 
These passages plainly signify that the apostles were accus- 
tomed, sometimes, at least, to give the sacrament under one 
kind alone, though Bishop Porteus has not the candor to confess 
it. Another more important passage for communion under 
either kind, he entirely overlooks, where the apostle says : 
" Whosoever shall eat this bread, OR drink the chalice of the 
Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of 
the Lord."* True it is, that in the English Bible,, the text is 
here corrupted, the conjunctive AND being put for the disjunc- 

* Ulvrj, or drink, 1 Cor. xi. 27. The Rev. Mr. Grier, who has attempted 
to vindicate the purity of the English Protestant Bible, has nothing else to 
say for this alteration of St. Paul's epistle, than that in what they falsely 
call " the parallel text of Luke and Matthew," the conjunctive and occurs ! 
Grier's Answer to Ward's Errata, p. 13. — I may here notice the horrid and 
notorious misrepresentation of the Caiholic doctrine concerning the eucha- 
rist, of which two living dignitaries are guilty in their publications. The 
Bishop of Lincoln says, '*' Papists contend that the mere receiving of the 
Lord's supper merits the remission of sin ex opere operato, as it were me. 
chanically, whatever may be the character or disposition of the communi- 
cants." Elem. of Theol. vol. ii. p. 491. Dr. Hey repeats the charge in 
nearly the same words. Lectures, vol. iv. p. 355. What Catholic will not 
lift up his hands in amazement at the grossness of this calumny, knowing, as 
he does, from his catechism and all his books, what purity of soul, and how 
much greater preparation, is required for the reception of our sacrament, than 
Protestants require for receiving theirs ? See Concil. Trid. Ses. xiii. c. 7. 
Cat. Rom, Douay Catechu, &c. 



COMMtTNlON UNDER ONE KIND. 



tive OR, contrary to the original Greek, as well as to the Latin 
Vulgate, to the version of Beza, &c; but as his lordship could 
not be ignorant of this corruption, and the importance of the 
genuine text, it is inexcusable in him to have passed it over 
unnoticed. 

The whole series of ecclesiastical history proves, that the 
Catholic Church, from the time of the apostles down to the pre- 
sent, ever firmly believing that the whole body, blood, soul and 
divinity of Jesus Christ, equally subsist under eacli of the spe- 
cies or appearances of bread and wine, regarded it as a mere 
matter of discipline, which of them was to be received in the 
holy sacrament. It appears from Tertullian, in the second 
century,* from St. Dennis of Alexandria,! and St. Cyprian, J 
in the third ; from St. Basil§ and St. Chrysostom, in the fourth, 
&c.|| that the blessed sacrament, under the form of bread, 
was preserved in the oratories and houses of the primitive Chris- 
tians, for private communion, and for the viaticum in danger of 
death. There are instances, also, of its being carried on the 
breast, at sea, in the orarium or neckcloth. IT On the other 
hand, as it was the custom to give the blessed sacrament to 
baptized children, it was administered to those who were quite 
infants, by a drop out of the chalice.** On the same principle, 
it being discovered, in the fifth century, that certain Manichaean 
heretics, who had come to Rome from Africa, objected to the 
sacramental cup, from an erroneous and wicked opinion, Pope 
Leo ordered them to be' excluded from the communion en- 
tirely ;ff and Pope Gelasius required all his flock to receive 
under both kinds. ^ It appears that, in the twelfth century, 
only the officiating priest and infants received under the form 
of wine ; which discipline was confirmed at the beginning of 
the fifteenth century by the council of Constance, §§ on account 
of the profanations, and other evils, resulting from the general 

* Ad Uxor. I. ii. t Apud Euseb. 1. iv. c. 44. t De Lapsis. 

§ Epist. ad Caesar. || Apud Soz. 1. viii. c. 5. 

IT St. Ambrose, in obit. Frat. — It appears, also, that St. Birinus, the apos- 
tie of the West Saxons, brought the blessed sacrament with him into this 
island in an Orarium. Gul. Malm. Vit. Pontif. Florent. Wigorn, Higden, &c. 

** St. Cypr. de Laps. tt Sermo. iv. de Quadrag. 

tt Decret. Comperimus Dist. iii. 

Dr. Porteus, Dr. Coomber, Kemnitius, &c. accuse this council of de- 
creeing, that "notwithstanding''' (fur so they express it) " our Saviour min- 
istered in both kinds, one only shall, in future, be administered to the laity :" 
as if the council opposed i f s auihority to that of Christ ; whereas it barely 
defines, that some circumstances of the institution (namely, that it to<>k 
place after supper, that the apostles received without being fasting, and 
that both species were consecrated) are not obligatory on all Christiana. See 
Can. xiu. 



reception of it in that form. Soon after this, the more orderly 
sect of the Hussites, namely the Calixtins, professing their obe- 
dience to the church in other respects, and petitioning the Coun- 
cil of Basil to be indulged in the use of the chalice ; this was 
granted them.* In like manner, Pope Pius IV., at the request 
of the Emperor Ferdinand, authorized several bishops of Ger- 
many to allow the use of the cup to those persons of their re- 
spective dioceses, who desired it.f The French kings, since 
the reign of Philip, have had the privilege of receiving, under 
both kinds, at their coronation and at their death 4 The offi- 
ciating deacon and subdeacon of St. Dennis, and all the monks 
of the order of Cluni, who serve the altar, enjoy the same.§ 

From the above statement, Bishop Porteus will learn, if not 
that the manner of receiving the sacrament under one or the 
other kind, or under both kinds, is a mere matter of variable 
discipline, at least that the doctrine and the practice of the 
Catholic Church are consistent with each other. I am now 
going to produce evidence of another kind, which, after all his, 
and the Bishop of Durham's anathemas against us, on account 
of this doctrine and discipline, will demonstrate, that, conform- 
ably with the declarations of the three principal denominations 
of Protestants, either the point at issue is a mere matter of disci- 
pline, or else, that they are utterly inconsistent with themselves. 

To begin with Luther : he reproaches his disciple Carlostad, 
who in his absence had introduced some new religious changes 
at Wittenberg, with having " placed Christianity in things of no 
account, such as ' communicating under both kinds,' 99 &c.|| On 
another occasion he writes: "If a council did ordain or permit 
loth kinds, in spite of the council, we would take but one, or take 
neither, or curse those who should take both."1T Secondly, the 
Calvinists of France, in their synod at Poictiers, in 1560, de- 
creed thus : " The bread of our Lord's supper ought to be ad- 
ministered to those who cannot drink wine, on their making a 
protestation that they do not refrain from contempt."** Lastly, 
by separate acts of that Parliament, and that king who estab- 
lished the Protestant religion in England, and, by name, com- 
munion in both kinds, it is provided that the latter should only 
be commonly so delivered and ministered ; and an exception is 
made incase " necessity did otherwise require, "ff — Now, I need 
not observe, that, if the use of the cup were by the appointment 

* Sess. ii. t Mem. Granv. t. xiii. Odorhainal. t Annal. Pagi. 
§ Nat. Alex. t. i. p. 43'J. || Epist. ad Gasp. Gustol. 

IT Form. Miss. t. ii. pp. 384, 386. ** On the Lord's supper, c. iii. p. 7. 
tt Burnet's Hist, of Reform. Part ii. p. 41. Heylin's Hist, of Reform, p 
58. For the proclamation, see Bishop Sparrow's Collection, p.. 17. 



SACRIFICE OF THE NEW LAW. 



241 



pf Christ, an essential part of the sacrament, no necessity can 
ever be pleaded in bar of that appointment ; and men might as 
well pretend to celebrate the eucharist without bread as with- 
out wine,* or to confer the sacrament of baptism without water. 
The dilemma is inevitable. Either the ministration of the 
sacrament, under one or under both kinds is a matter of change- 
able discipline, or each of the three principal denominations of 
Protestants has contradicted itself. I should be glad to know 
which part of the alternative his lordship may choose. 

I am, yours, &c. 

John Milker. 



LETTER XL.— TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c. 
ON THE SACRIFICE OF THE NEW LAW. 
Dear sir — 

The Bishop of London leads me next to the consideration of 
the sacrifice of the new law, commonly called the mass, on 
which, however, he is brief, and evidently embarrassed. As I 
have already touched upon this subject, in treating of the means 
of sanctification in the Catholic Church, I shall be as brief upon 
it here as I possibly can. 

A sacrifice is an offering up, and immolation of, a living ani- 
mal, or other sensible thing, to God, in testimony that he is the 
master of life and death, the Lord of us and all things. It is 
evidently a more expressive act of the creature's homage to his 
Creator, as well as one more impressive on the mind of the 
creature itself, than mere prayer is ; and, therefore, it was re- 
vealed by God to the patriarchs, at the beginning of the world, 
and afterwards more strictly enjoined by him to his chosen peo- 
ple, in the revelation of his written law to Moses, as the most 
acceptable and efficacious worship that could be offered up to 
his Divine Majesty. The tradition of this primitive ordinance, 
and the notion of its advantageousness, have been so universal, 
that it has been practised, in one form or other, in every age, 
from the time of our first parents down to the present, and by 
every people, whether civilized or barbarous, except modern 
Protestants. For when the nations of the earth changed the 
glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of cor- 
ruptible man, and of birds and four footed beasts, Rom. i. 23, they 

* The writer has heard of British made wine being frequently used by 
church ministers in their sacrament for real wine. The missionaries who 
were sent to Otaheite, used the bread fruit for real bread, on the like occa* 
Bion. » See Voyage of the ship Duff. 

21 



24-2 



LETTER, XL, 



continued the right of sacrifice, and transferred it to those un- 
worthy objects of their idolatry. From the whole of this, I infer, 
that it would have been truly surprising, if under the most per- 
fect dispensation of God's benefits to men, the new law, he had 
left them destitute of sacrifice. But he has not so left them ; 
on the contrary, u *« nrophecy of Malachy is evidently verified 
in the Catholic Church, spread as it is over the surface of the 
earth : " From the rising of the sun, even to the going down 
thereof, my name is great among the Gentiles ; and in every 
place there is SACRIFICE ; and there is offered to my name a 
clean oblation." Mai. i. 11. If Protestants say: we have the 
sacrifice of Christ's death ; I answer, so had the servants of God 
under the law of nature, and the written law ; " for it is impos- 
sible that with the blood of oxen and goats sin should be taken 
away." Nevertheless, they bad perpetual sacrifices of animals 
to represent the death of Christ, and to apply the fruits of it to 
their souls. In the same manner Catholics have Christ himself 
really present, and mystically offered on their altars daily, for 
the same ends, but in a far more efficacious manner, and, of 
course, "a true propitiatory sacrifice." That Christ is truly 
present in the blessed eucharist, I have proved by many argu- 
ments ; that a mystical immolation of him takes place in the 
holy mass, by the separate consecration of the bread and of the 
wine, which strikingly represents the separation of his blood 
from his body, I have likewise shown. Finally, I have shown 
vou, that the officiating priest performs these mysteries by com- 
mand of Christ, and in memory of what he did at the last sup- 
per, and what he endured on Mount Calvary : do this in mem- 
ory of me. Nothing, then, is wanting in the holy mass to con- 
stitute it the true and propitiatory sacrifice of the new law ; a 
sacrifice which as much surpasses, in dignity and efficacy, the 
sacrifices of the old law, as the chief priest and victim of it, the 
incarnate Son of God, surpasses, in thuse respects, the sons of 
Aaron, and the animals which they sacrificed. No wonder 
then that, as the fathers of the church have, from the earliest 
times, borne testimony to the reality of this sacrifice,* they 

* St. Justin, who appears to have been, in his youth, contemporary with 
St. John the Evangelist, says, "Christ instituted a sacrifice in bread and 
wine, which Christians offer up in every place," quoting Malachy, i. 19. Dia- 
log, cum Tryphon. St. Irenaeus, whose master, Polycarp, was a disciple of 
that evangelist, says, that " Christ, in consecrating bread and wine, has insti- 
tuted the sacrifice of the new law, which the church received from the apos- 
tles, according to the prophecy of Malachy." L. iv. 32. St. Cyprian calls the 
eucharist " a true and full sacrifice ;" and says, that " as Melchisedech offer- 
ed bread and wine, so Christ. offered the same, namely, his body and blood." 
Epist. 63. St. Chrysostom, St. Augustin, St. Ambrose, &c, are equally clear 
and expressive on this point. The last-mentioned calls this sacrifice by the 
name of missa, so do St. Leo, St. Gregory, our Venerable Bede, &c. 



SACRIFICE OF THE NEW LAW. 



243 



should speak in such lofty terms of its awfulness and efficacy : 
no wonder that the church of God should retain and revere it, 
as the most sacred, and the very essential part of her sacred 
liturgy : — -and I will add, no wonder that Satan should have 
persuaded Martin Luther to attempt to abrogate this worship, as 
that which is most of all offensive to him.* 

The main arguments of the Bishops of London and Lincoln, 
and of Dr. Hey, with other Protestant controvertists, against the 
sacrifice of the new law, are drawn from St. Paul's Epistle to 
the Hebrews, where, comparing the sacrifice of our Saviour with 
the sacrifice of the Mosaic law, the apostle says, " That Christ 
being become a high priest of the good things to come, by a 
greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that 
is, not of this creation : neither by the blood of goats or of 
calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the Holies, hav- 
ing obtained eternal redemption." Heb. ix. 11, 12. "Nor yet 
that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth 
into the Holies every year," v. 25. Again, St. Paul says, 
" Every priest standeth indeed, daily ministering, and often 
offering the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins : 
but this man offering one sacrifice for sins, sitteth at the right 
hand of God," chap. x. 11, 12.— Such are the texts, at full 
length, which modern Protestants urge so confidently against 
the sacrifice of the new law, but in which neither the ancient 
fathers, nor any other description of Christians, but themselves, 
can see any argument against it. In fact, if these passages be 
read in their context, it will appear that the apostle is barely 
proving to the Hebrews, (whose lofty ideas and strong tena- 
ciousness of their ancient rites, appear from different parts of 
the Acts of the Apostles,) how infinitely superior the sacrifice 
of Christ is to those of the Mosaic law ; particularly from the 
circumstance, which he repeats, in different forms, namely, that 
there was a necessity of their sacrifices being often repeated, 
which, after all, could not, of themselves, and independently of 
the one they prefigured, take away sin j whereas the latter, 
namely, Christ's death on the cross, obliterated at once the sins 
of those who availed themselves of it. Such is the argument 
of St. Paul to the Jews, respecting their sacrifices, which in no 
sort militates against the sacrifice of the mass ; this being the 
same sacrifice with that of the cross, as to the victim that is 

r, in his Book de Unct. et Miss, Priv. torn, vii. fol. 228, gives an 
he motive which induced him to suppress the sacrifice of the 
mong his followers. — He says that the Devil appeared to him at mid- 
nigh', and, in a lung conference with* him, the whole of which he relates, 
convinced him that the worship of the mass is idolatry. See Letters to a 
Prebendary, Let. v. 



244 



LETTER XL. 



offered, and as to the priest who offers it. differing in nothing hut 
the manner of offering ;* in the one there being a real, and in 
the other a mystical, effusion of the victim's blood. f So far 
from invalidating the Catholic doctrine on this point, the apostle 
confirms it in this very epistle ; where, quoting and repeating 
the sublime nsalm of the royal prophet concerning the Messiah : 
Thou art a priest for ever ACCORDING TO THE ORDER 
OF MELCHISEDECH, Ps. cix. alias ex. i he enlarges on the 
dignity of this sacerdotal patriarch, to whom Aaron himself, the 
high priest of the old law, paid tribute, as to his superior, through 
his ancestor Abraham. Hebrv.— vii. Now in what did this 
Order of Melchisedech consist ? In what, I ask, did this sacri- 
fice differ from those which Abraham himself, and the other 
patriarchs, as well as Aaron and his sons, offered ? Let us con- 
suit the sacred text, as to what it says concerning this royal 
priest, when he came to meet Abraham, on his return from vic- 
tory : " Melchisedech, the king of Salem, bringing forth BREAD 
AND WINE, for he was the priest of the Most High God ; 
blessed him." Gen. xiv. 18. It was then in offering up a sac- 
rifice of oread and wine,% instead of slaughtered animals, that 
Melchisedech's sacrifice differed from the generality of those in 
the old law, and that he prefigured the sacrifice which Christ 
was to institute in the new law, from the same elements. No 
other sense but this can be elicited from the Scripture as to this 
matter ; and, accordingly, the holy fathers unanimously adhere 
to this meaning. § 

In finishing this letter. I cannot help, "dear sir, making two or 
three short but important observations. The first regards the 
deception practised on the unlearned by the above-named bishops. 
Dr. Hey, and most other Protestant controvertists, in talking on 
every occasion of the Popish mass, and representing the tenets 
of the real presence, transubstantiation, and a subsisting true 
propiatory sacrifice, as peculiar to Catholics ; whereas, if they 
are persons of any learning, they must know that these are, and 
ever have been- held, by all the Christians in the world, except 
the comparatively few who inhabit the northern parts of Europe. 
I speak of the Melchite or common Greeks of Turkey, the Ar- 
menians, the Muscovites, the Nestorians, the Eutychians, or 
Jacobites, the Christians of St. Thomas in India, the Cophts and 
Ethiopians in Africa, all of whom maintain each of those arti- 

* Concil. Trid. Sess. xxii. cap. 2. t Cat. ad. Paroc. P. ii. p. 81. 

t The sacrifice of Cain, Gen. iv. 3, and that ordered in Levit. ii. 1, of flour, 
oil, and incense, prove that inanimate things were sometimes of old offered 
in sacrifice. 

§ St. Cypr. Ep. 63. St. Aug. on Ps. xxxiii. Su Chrys. Horn. 35. St. 
Jerom, Ep. 126, &c. 



SACRIFICE OF THE NEW LAW. 



245 



c\es. and almost every other on which Protestants differ from 
Catholics, with as much firmness as we ourselves do. Now as 
these sects have been totally separated from the Catholic 
Church, some of them eight hundred, and some fourteen hun- 
dred years, it is impossible they should have derived any recent 
doctrines or practices from her ; and, divided as they ever have 
been among themselves, they cannot have combined to adopt 
them. On the other hand, since the rise of Protestantism, at- 
tempts have been repeatedly made to draw some or other of 
them to the novel creed, but all in vain. Melancthon translated 
the Augsburg Confession of Faith into Greek, and sent it to 
Joseph, Patriarch of Constantinople, hoping he would adopt it ; 
whereas the patriarch did not so much as acknowledge the re- 
ceipt of the present.* Fourteen years later, Crusius, Professor 
of Tubigen, made a similar attempt on Jeremy, the successor 
of Joseph, who wrote back, requesting him to write no more on 
the subject, at the same time making the most explicit declara- 
tion of his belief in the seven sacraments, the sacrifice of the 
mass, transubstantiation, &c.f — In the middle of the seventeenth 
century, fresh overtures being made to the Greeks by the Cal- 
vinists of Holland, the most convincing evidence of the orthodox 
belief of all the above-mentioned communions, on the articles in 
question, were furnished by them : the original of which was 
deposited in the French king's library at Paris.J I have to re- 
mark, in the second place, on the inconsistencies of the Church 
of England, respecting this point : she has priests, § but no sac- 
rifice ! she has altars.^ but no victim/ she has an essential con- 
secration of the sacramental elements.1T without any the least 
effect upon them! Not to dive deeper into this chaos, I would 
gladly ask Bishop Porteus ; what hinders a deacon, or even a 
layman, from consecrating the sacramental bread and wine, as 
validly as a priest or a bishop can do, agreeably to his system 
of consecration ? There is evidently no obstacle at all, except 
such as the mutable law of the land interposes. In the last 
place, I think it right to quote some of the absurd and irreligious 
invectives of the renowned Dr. Hey against the holy mass, be- 
cause the3 r show the extreme ignorance of our religion which 
generally prevails among the most learned Protestants who write 

t Sheffmac. torn, ii. p. 7. f Ibid. 

X Perpetuit. de la Foi. § See the Rubrics of the Communion Service. 
J| See ditto, in Sparrow's Coll-se. p. 20. 

" If the consecrated bread or wine be all spent^ before all have commu- 
nicated, the priest is to consecrate more." Rubrics. 

N. B. Bishop Warburton and Bishop Cleaver earnestly contend, that the 
eucharist is a feast upon a sacrifice; but as, in their dread of Popery, they 
admit no change, nor even the reality of a victim, their feast is proved to be 
an imaginary banquet on an ideal viand. 

21* 



246 



LETTER XL. 



against it. The doctor first describes the mass as " blasphe- 
mous, in dragging down Christ from heaven/"' according to his 
expression ; 2dly, as " pernicious in giving men an easy way," 
as he pretends, "of evading all their moral and religious du- 
ties;" 3dly, " as promoting infidelity ;" in conformity with 
which latter assertion, he maintains, that u most Romanists of 
letters and science are infidels." He next proceeds seriously to 
advise Catholics to abandon this part of their sacred liturgy, 
namely, the adorable sacrifice of the new law ; and he then 
concludes his theological farce with the following ridiculous 
threats against this sacrifice : " If the Romanists will not listen 
to our brotherly exhortations, let them fear our threats. The 
rage of paying for masses will not last for ever ; as men improve 
(by the French revolution) it wilt continue to grow weaker : as 
philosophy (that of Atheism) rises, masses will sink in price, and 
superstition pine away."* I wish I had an opportunity of tell- 
ing the learned professor, that I should have expected, from the 
failure of Patriarch Luther, counselled and assisted as he was by 
Satan himself, in his attempts to abolish the holy mass, he would 
have been more cautious in dealing prophetic threats against it I 
In fact, he has lived to see this divine worship publicly restored 
in every part of Christendom where it was proscribed, when he 
vented his menaces ; for as to the private celebration of mass, 
this was never intermitted, not even in the depth of the gloomi- 
est dungeons, and where no pay could be had by the Catholic 
priesthood. What other religious worship, I ask, could have 
triumphed over such a persecution ? The same will be the case 
in the latter days, when the man of sin shall have indignation 
against the covenant of the sanctuary — and shall take away the con- 
tinual sacrifice, Dan. xi. 'SO, 34 ; for even then, the mystical 
woman who is clothed with the sun, and has the moon under her 
feet — shall fly into the wilderness, Rev. xii. 1, 6, and perform 
the divine mysteries of a God incarnate in caverns and cata- 
combs, as she did in early times ; till that happy day, when her 
heavenly Spouse, casting aside those sacramental veils under 
which his love now shrouds him, shall shine forth in the glory 
of God the Father, the Judge of the living and the dead. 

I am, &c. 

John Milner. 

* Dr. Hey's Theol. Lectures, vol. iv. p. 385. The professor tells us in a 
note, that this lecture was delivered in the year 1792, the hey-day of that 
antichristian and anti-social philosophy, which attempted, through an ocean 
of blood, to subvert every altar and every throna. 



ABSOLUTION FROM SIN. 



247 



LETTER XLI. — TO THE REV. ROBERT CLAYTON, M.A. 
ON ABSOLUTION FROM SIN. 

Reverend sir— 

I perceive that, in selecting objections against the church, 
although you chiefly follow Bishop Porteus, who mixes, in the 
same chapter, the heterogeneous subjects of the mass and the 
forgiveness of sins, you adopt some others from the Tracts of 
Bishop Watson, and even from writers of such little repute as 
the Rev. C. De Coetlogan. This preacher, in venting the hor- 
rid calumnies which a great proportion of other Protestant 
preachersand controvertists of different sects, equally with him- 
self, instil into the minds of their ignorant hearers and readers, 
expresses himself as follows : " In the Church of Rome, you 
may purchase not only pardon for sins already committed, but 
for those that shall be committed ; so that any one may promise 
himself impunity, upon paying the rate that is set upon any sin 
he hath a mind to commit. — And so truly is Popery the mother 
of abominations, that if any one hath wherewithal to pay, he 
may not only be indulged in his present transgressions, but may 
even be "permitted to transgress in future."* \And are these 
shameless calumniators real Christians, who believe in a judg- 
ment to come ? And do they expect to make us Catholics re- 
nounce our religion, by representing it to us as the very reverse 
of what we know it to be ? — It is true, Bishop Porteus, in his 
attack upon the Catholic doctrine of absolution and justification, 
does not go the lengths of the pulpit declaimer above quoted, 
and of the other controvertists alluded to ; still he is guilty of 

* Abominations of the Church of Rome, p. 13. The preacher goes on to 
state the sums of money for which, he says, Catholics believe they may com- 
mit the most atrocious crimes: "For incest, &c, five sixpences; for de- 
bauching a virgin, six sixpences; for perjury, ditto ; for him who kills his 
father, mother, &c, one crown and five groats !" — This curious account is 
borrowed from the Taxa CancellaricB Romance, a book which has been fre- 
quently published, though with great variations both as to the crimes and the 
prices, by the Protestants of Germany and France, and as frequently con- 
demned by the See of Rome. It is proper that Mr. Clayton and his friend 
should know, that ihe pope's court of chancery. has no more to do, nor pre- 
tends to have any more to do, with the forgiveness of sins, than his majesty's 
court of chancery does. In case there ever was the least real groundwork 
for this vile book, which I cannot find there was, the money paid into the 
papal chancery could be nothing else but \h.e fees of office^ on restoring cer- 
tain culprits to the certain privileges which they had forfeited by their crimes. 
When the proceedings in Doctors' Commons, in a case of incest, are sus- 
pended, (as I have known them suspended during the whole life of one of 
the accused parties,) fees of office are always required ; but would it not be 
a vile calumny to say, that leave to commit incest may be purchased in Eng- 
land for certain sums of money? 



248 



LETTER XL1. 



much gross misrepresentation of it. As his language on the 
subject is confused, if not contradictory. I will briefly state what 
the Catholic Church has ever believed, and has solemnly defined 
in her last general council, concerning it. 

The Council of Trent teaches, that " All men lost their inno- 
cence, and became defiled, and children of wrath, in the prevari- 
cation of Adam;" — that, ' £ not only the Gentiles were unable 
by the force of nature, but that even the Jews were unable, by 
the law of Moses, to rise, notwithstanding free-will was not ex- 
tinct in them, however weakened and depraved;"* — that, " The 
heavenly Father of mercy and God of all consolation sent his 
Son, Jesus Christ, to men, in order to redeem both Jews and 
Gentiles ;"f — that, " Though he died for all, yet all do not re- 
ceive the benefit of his death ; but only those to whom the merit 
of his passion is communicated — that, for this purpose, 
" Since the preaching of the Gospel, baptism, or the desire of it, 
is necessary ;"§ — that, " The beginning of justification, in adult 
persons, (those who are come to the use of reason.) is to be de- 
rived from God's preventing grace, through Jesus Christ, by 
which, without any merits of their own, they are called ; so 
that they who, by their sins, were averse from God, are, by his 
exciting and assisting grace, prepared to convert themselves to 
their justification, by freely consenting to, and co-operating with 
his grace ;"|| — that, ''• Being excited and assisted by divine 
grace, and receiving faith from hearing, they are freely moved 
towards God, believing the things which have been divinely re- 
vealed and promised — they are excited to hope that God will be 
merciful to them for Christ's sake, and they begin to love him, 
as the fountain of all justice ; and therefore are moved to a cer- 
tain hatred and detestation of sins;" — lastly, " They resolve, 
on receiving baptism, to begin a new life, and keep God's com- 
mandments. "IT — Such is the doctrine of the church concerning 
the justification of the adult in baptism. With respect to the 
pardon of sins committed after baptism, the church teaches that, 
" The penance of a Christian, after his fall, is very different 
from that of baptism, and that it consists not only in refraining 
from sins, and sincerely detesting them ; that is, in a contrite 
and humble heart ; but also in a sacramental confession of them, 
in desire at least, and at a proper time ; and the priestly absolu- 
tion. Likewise in satisfaction ; by fasting, alms, prayers, and 
other pious exercises of a spiritual life ; not indeed for the eter- 
nal punishment, which, together with the crime, is remitted in 
the sacrament, or the desire of the sacrament, but for the tern- 



* Sess. vi. cap. i. 
§ Cap. iv t 



t Cap. ii. 
11 Cap, v. 



t Cap. iii. 
IT Cap, Yi» 



ABSOLUTION FROM SIN. 



249 



pomt punishment, which the Scripture teaches is not always and 
wholly remitted, as in baptism."* Such is, and always was, 
the doctrine of the Catholic Church, which thus ascribes the 
whole glory of man's justification, both in its beginning and its 
progress, to God, through Jesus Christ ; in opposition to Pela- 
gians and modern Lutherans, who attribute the beginning of 
conversion to the human creature. On the other hand, this doc- 
trine leaves man in possession of his free-will, for co-operating 
in this great work ; and thereby rejects the pernicious tenet of 
the Calvinists, who deny free-will, and ascribe even our sins to 
God. In short, the Catholic Church equally condemns the en- 
thusiasm of the Methodist, who fancies himself justified, in some 
unexpected instant, without faith, hope, charity, or contrition ; 
and the presumption of the unconverted sinner, who supposes 
that exterior good works and the reception of the sacrament will 
avail him, without any degree of the above-mentioned divine 
virtues. Such, I say, is the Catholic doctrine, in spite of all the 
calumnies of the Rev. C. De Coetlogan and Bishop Porteus. — 
This prelate is chiefly bent on disproving the necessity of sacra- 
mental confession, and on depriving the sacerdotal absolution of 
all efficacy whatsoever. Accordingly, he maintains, that when 
Christ breathed upon his apostles, and said to them; Receive ye 
the Holy Ghost, WHOSE SINS YOU SHALL FORGIVE, 
THEY ARE FORGIVEN TO THEM ; AND WHOSE 
SINS YOU. SHALL RETAIN, THEY ARE RETAINED, 
John xx. 22, 23, he did not give them any real power to remit 
sins, but only " a power of declaring who were truly penitent, 
and of inflicting miraculous punishment on sinners ; as likewise 
of preaching the word of God," &c.f And is this, I appeal to 
you, reverend sir, following the plain natural sense of the writ- 
ten word ? But, instead of arguing the case myself, I will pro- 
duce an authority against the bishop's vague and arbitrary gloss 
on this decisive passage, which I think he cannot object to or 
withstand ; it is no other than that of the renowned Protestant 
champion, Chillingworth. Treating of this text, he says : " Can 
any man be so unreasonable as to imagine, that when our Sa- 
viour, in so solemn a manner, having first breathed upon his 
disciples, thereby conveying and insinuating the Holy Ghost 
into their hearts, renewed unto them, or rather confirmed that 
glorious commission, &c, whereby he delegated to them an au- 
thority of binding and loosing sins upon earth, dec, can any one 
think, I say, so unworthily of our Saviour, as to esteem these 
words of his for no better than compliment ? Therefore, in obe- 
dience to his gracious will, and as I am warranted and enjoined 



* John, xx. 22, 23. 



t P. 45. 



250 



LETTER XLI. 



by my holy mother, the Church of England, I beseech you, that 
by your practice and use, you will not suffer that commission, 
which Christ hath given to his ministers, to be a vain form of 
words, without any sense under them. When you find your- 
selves charged and oppressed, &c, have recourse to your spirit- 
ual physician, and freely disclose the nature and malignancy 
of your disease, &c. And come not to him, only with such 
mind as you would go to a learned man, as one that can speak 
comfortable things to you : but as to one that ' hath authority 
delegated to him from God himself, to absolve and acquit you 
of your sins.' "* 

Having quoted this great Protestant authority, against the 
prelate's cavils concerning sacerdotal absolution, I shall pro- 
duce one or two more of the same sort, and then return to the 
more direct proofs of the doctrine under consideration. The 
Lutherans, then, who are the elder branch of the Reformation, 
in their Confession of Faith, and Apology for that Confession, 
expressly teach, that absolution is no less a sacrament than 
baptism and the Lord's supper; that particular dbsolut'on is to 
be retained in confession ; that to reject it is the error of the 
Novatian heretics ; and that, by the power of the keys, Matt, 
xvi. 19, sins are remitted, not only in the sight of the church, 
but also in the sight of God.-f Luther himself, in his catechism, 
requires that the penitent in confession should expressly declare, 
that he believes the " forgiveness of the priest to be the forgive- 
ness of God. "J What can Bishop Porteus and other modern 
Protestants say to all this, except that Luther and his disciples 
were infected with Popery ? Let us then proceed to inquire 
into the doctrine of the church itself, of which he is one of the 
most distinguished heads. In The Order of the Communion, 
composed by Cranmer, and published by Edward VI. the par- 
son, vicar, or curate is to proclaim this among other things : "If 
there be any of you whose conscience is troubled arid grieved at 
any thing, lacking comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or 
to some other discreet and learned priest, and confess and open 
his sin and grief secretly, &c, and, that of us, as a minister 
of God and of the church, he may receive comfort and abso- 
lution. § Conformably with this admonition, it is ordained in the 
Common Prayer Bock, that when the minister visits any sick 
person, the " latter'should. be moved to make a special confes- 
sion of his sins, if he feels his conscience troubled with any 
weighty matter; after which confession, the priest shall absolve 

* Serm. vii. Religion of Prot. pp. 408, 409. 
t Confess..Augs. Art. xi. xii. xiii. Apol. 

X In Catech. Parv. See also Luther's Table Talk, c. xviii. on Auricular 
Confession. § Bishop Sparrow's Collect, p. 20. 



ABSOLUTION FROM SIN. 



251 



him, if he humbly and heartily desire it, after this sort : " Our 
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to his church to absolve 
all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great 
mercv, forgive thee thine offences ; and by his authority com- 
mitted to me, I ABSOLVE THEE FROM ALL THY SINS, 
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost, Amen."* I may add, that soon after James L became, 
at the same time, the member and the head of the English 
church, he desired his prelates to inform him in the conference 
at Hampton Court, what authority this church claimed in the 
article of absolution from sin ? when Archbishop Whitgift began 
to entertain him with an account of the general confession and 
absolution in the communion service, with which the king not 
being satisfied, Bancroft, at that time Bishop of London, fell on 
his knees, and said, " It becomes us to deal plainly with your 
majesty ; there is also in the book, a more particular and per- 
sonal absolution in the Visitation of the Sick. Not only the 
Confession of Augusta, (Augsburg,) Bohemia and Saxony, re- 
tain and allow it, but also Mr. Calvin doth approve both such a 
general and such a private confession and absolution." To 
this the king answered, " I exceedingly well approve it, being 
an apostolical and godly ordinance, given in the name of 
Christ, to one that desireth it, upon the clearing of his con- 
science, "f 

I have signified that there are other passages of Scripture 
besides that quoted above from John xx. in proof of the author- 
ity exercised by the Catholic Church, in the forgiveness of sins; 
such as Matt. xvi. 19, where Christ gives the keys of the king- 
dom of heaven to Peter; and chap, xviii. 18, where he declares 
to all his apostles: " Verily, I say unto you, whatsoever you 
shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever 
you shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven." But here 
also, Bishop Porteus and modern Protestants distort the plain 
meaning of Scripture, and say, that no other power is expressed 
by these words, than those of inflicting miraculous punishments, 
and of preaching the word of God ! — Admitting, however, it 
were possible to affix so foreign a meaning to these texts, I 

* Order for the Visitation of the Sick. N. B. To encourage the secret 
confession of sins, the Church of England has made a canon, requiring her 
ministers not to reveal the same. See Canones Eccles. A. D. 1693, n. 113. 

t Fuller's Ch. Hist. B. x. p. 9. See the defence of Bancroft's successor 
in the See of Canterbury, Dr. Laud, who endeavored to enforce auricular 
confession, in Heylin's Life of Laud,~P. ii. p. 415. It appears from this wri- 
ter, that Laud was confessor to the Duke of Buckingham, and from Burnet, 
that Bishop Morley was Confessor to the Duchess of York, when a Protest, 
ant. Hi^-ff-ry of his own Timp?. 



252 



LETTER XL2. 



would gladly ask the bishop, why, after ordaining the priests of 
his .church by this very form of words, he afterwards, by a 
separate form, commissions them to preach the word, and to 
minister ?* " No one," exclaims the bishop, " but God. can 
forgive sins." True ; but as he has anuexed the forgiveness 
of sins committed before baptism, to the reception of this sacra- 
ment with the requisite dispositions : " Do penance," said St. Pe- 
ter to the Jews, " and be baptized everyone of you, in the name 
of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins," Acts ii. 38 ; so 
he is pleased to forgive sins committed after baptism, by means 
of contrition, confession, satisfaction, and the priest's absolution. 

Against the obligation of confessing sins, which is so evident- 
ly sanctioned in Scripture, " Many that believed, came and 
confessed, and declared their deeds," Acts xix. 18 ; and so 
expressly commanded therein, " Confess your sins one to an- 
other," James v. 16 ; the bishop contends, that, " It is not know- 
ing a person's sins, that can qualify the priest to give him 
absolution, but knowing he hath repented of them."f In refu- 
tation of this objection, I do not ask : Why, then, does the Eng- 
lish church move the dying man to confess his sins 1 but I say, 
that the priest, being vested by Christ with a judicial power 
to bind or to loose, to forgive or to retain sins, cannot exercise 
that power, without taking cognizance of the cause on which he 
is to pronounce, and without judging in particular of the dis- 
positions of the sinner, especially as to his sorrow for his sins, 
and resolution to refrain from them in future. Now this know- 
ledge can only be gained from the penitent's own confession. 
From this may be gathered, whether his offences are those of 
frailty or of malice, whether they are accidental or habitual ; 
in which latter case, they are ordinarily to be retained, till his 
amendment gives proof of his real repentance. Confession is 
also necessary, to enable the minister of the sacrament to de- 
cide, whether a public reparation for the crimes committed, be, 
or be not requisite ; and whether there is, or is not restitution 
to be made to the neighbor who has been injured in person, pro- 
perty, or reputation. Accordingly, it is well known that such 
restitutions are frequently made by those who make use of 
sacramental confession, and very seldom by those who do not 
use it. I say nothing of the incalculable advantage it is to the 
sinner, in the business of his conversion, to have a confidential 
and experienced pastor, to withdraw the veils behind which self- 
love is apt to conceal his favorite passions and worse crimes, 
and to expose to him the enormity of his guilt, of which before 
he had perhaps but an imperfect notion ; and to prescribe to him 



* See the Form of Ordaining Priests. 



t P. 46. 



ABSOLUTION FROM SIN. 



253 



the proper remedies for his entire spiritual cure. — After all, it 
is for the Holy Catholic Church, with whom the word of God 
and the sacraments were deposited, by her divine Spouse, Jesus 
Christ, to explain the sense of the former, and the constituents 
of the latter ; and this church has uniformly taught, that con- 
fession, and the priest's absolution, where they can be had, are 
required for the pardon of the penitent sinner, as well as contri- 
tion, and a firm purpose of amendment. But, to believe the 
bishop, our church does not require contrition at all, for the 
justification of the sinner, though she has declared it to be one 
of the necessary parts of sacramental penance, nor " any dis- 
like to sin or love to God."* I will make no further answer to 
this shameful calumny, than by referring you and your friends 
to my above citations from the Council of Trent. In these, 
you have seen that she requires " a hatred and detestation of 
sin," that is, " a contrite and liumhle heart, which God never de- 
spises and, moreover, an incipient love of God, as the foun- 
tain of all justice." 

Finally, his lordship has the confidence to maintain, that 
"The primitive church did not hold confession and absolution 
of this kind to be necessary," and that " Private confession was 
never thought of as a command of God, for 900 years after 
Christ, nor determined to be such till after 1200. "f The few 
following quotations from ancient fathers and councils, will con- 
vince our Salopian friends, what sort of trust they are to place 
in this prelate's assertions on theological subjects. Tertullian, 
who lived in the age next to that of the apostles, and is the 
earliest Latin writer whose works we possess, writes thus : " If 
you withdraw from confession, think of hell-fire, which confes- 
sion extinguishes."! Origen, who wrote soon after him, incul- 
cates the necessity of confessing our most secret, sins, even those of 
thought,§ and advises the sinner " to look carefully about him in 
choosing the person to whom he is to confess his sins." j| St. Ba- 
sil, in the fourth century, wrote thus : " It is necessary to disclose 
our sins to those to whom the dispensation of the divine myste- 
ries is committed. St. Paulinus, the disciple of St. Ambrose, 
relates, that this holy doctor used to "weep over the penitents 
whose confessions he heard, but never disclosed their sins to any 
but to God alone."** The great St. Augustin writes, " Our 
merciful God wills us to confess in this world, that we may not 
be confounded in the other ;"■("(• and elsewhere he says, " Let no 
one 'say to himself, I do penance to God in private. Is it then 

* P. 47. t Ibid. t Lib. de Pcenit. 

$ Horn. 3 in Levit. || Horn. 2 in Pa. xxxvii. V Rule 229. 

** In Vit. Ambros. tt Horn. 20. 

22 



LETTER XLI. 



in vain that Christ has said, < Whatsoever you loose on earth 
shall be loosed in heaven V Is it in vain that the keys have 
been given to the church ?"* I could produce a long list of 
other passages to the same effect, from fathers and doctors, and 
also from councils of the church, anterior to the periods he has 
assigned to the commencement and confirmation of the doctrine 
in question; but I will have recourse to a shorter, and perhaps 
a more convincing proof, that this doctrine could not have been 
introduced into the church, at any period whatsoever subsequent 
to that of Christ and his apostles. My argument is this : it is 
impossible it should have been at any time introduced, if it was 
not from the first necessary. The pride of the human heart 
would at all times have revolted at the imposition of such a hu- 
miliation, as that of confessing all its most secret sins, if Chris- 
tians had not previously believed that this rite is of divine insti- 
tution, and even necessary for the pardon of them. Supposing, 
however, that the clergy, at some period, had fascinated the 
laity, kings and emperors, as well as peasants, to submit to this 
yoke ; it will still remain to be accounted for, how they took it 
up themselves ; for monks, and priests, and bishops, and the 
pope himself, must equally confess their sins, with the meanest 
of the people. And if even this could be explained, it would 
still be necessary to show, how the numerous organized churches 
of the Nestorians and Eutychians spread over Asia and Africa, 
from Bagdad to Axium, all of whom broke from the communion 
of the Catholic Church in the fifth century, took up the notion 
of penance being a sacrament, and that confession and absolu- 
tion are essential parts of it, as they all believe at . the present 
day. With respect to the main body of the Greek Christians, 
they separated from the Latins much about the period which 
our prelate has set down for the rise of this doctrine ; but though 
they reproached the Latin Christians with shaving their beards, 
singing Allelujah at wrong seasons, and other such like minu- 
tiae, they never accused them of any error respecting private 
confession or sacerdotal absolution. To support the bishop's 
assertions on this and many other points, it will be necessary to 
suppose, as T have said before, that a hundred million of Greek 
and Latin Christians lost their senses on some one and the same 
day or night ! 

In finishing this letter, I take leave, reverend sir, to advert to 
the case of some of your respectable society, who, to my know- 
ledge, are convinced of the truth of the Catholic religion, but 
are deterred from embracing it, by the dread of that sacrament 
of which I have been treating. Their pitiable case is by no 



Horn. 49. 



INDULGENCES. 



255 



means singular ; we continually find persons, who are not only 
desirous of reconciling themselves to their true mother, the 
Catholic Church, but also of laying the sins of their youth, and 
their ignorances, Ps. xxiv., alias xxv. 7, at the feet of some one 
or other of her faithful ministers, convinced that thereby they 
would procure ease to their afflicted souls; yet have not the 
courage to do this. Let the persons alluded to humbly and fer- 
vently pray to the Giver of all good gifts for his strengthening 
grace, and let them be persuaded of the truth of what an unex- 
ceptionable witness says, who had experienced, while he was a 
Catholic, the interior joy he describes ; where, persuading the 
penitent to go to his confessor, " not as to one that can speak 
comfortable and quieting words to him, but as to one that hath 
authority delegated to him from God himself, to absolve and ac- 
quit him of his sins," he goes on ; " If you shall do this, assure 
your souls, that the understanding of man is not able to con- 
ceive that transport, and excess of joy and comfort, which shall 
accrue to that man's heart, who is persuaded he hath been made 
partaker of this blessing."* On the other hand, if such persons 
are convinced, as I am satisfied they are, that Christ's words to 
his apostles, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; whose sins you shall 
remit, they are remitted," mean what they express, they must 
know, that confession is necessary to buy off overwhelming 
confusion, as the fathers I have quoted signify, at the great day 
of manifestation, and, with this, never-ending punishment. 

I am, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XLIL— TO THE REV. ROBERT CLAYTON. 
ON INDULGENCES. 

Reverend sir — 

I trust you will pardon me if I do not send a special answer 
to the objections you have stated against my last letter to you, 
because you will find the substance of them answered in this 
and my next letter, concerning indulgences and purgatory. 
Bishop Porteus reverses the proper order of these subjects, by 
treating first of the latter : indeed his ideas are much confused, 
and his knowledge very imperfect concerning them both. This 
prelate describes an indulgence to be, in the belief of Catholics, 
(without, however, giving any authority whatever for his de- 
scription,) " a transfer of the overplus of the saint's goodness 
joined with the merits of Christ, dec, by the pope, as head of 



* Chillingworth, Sermor vii p 409. 



256 



LETTER XLII. 



the church, towards the remission of their sins, who fulfil, in 
their life-time, certain conditions appointed by him, or whose 
friends will fulfil them, after their death."* He speaks of it as 
<£ a method of making poor wretches believe, that wickedness 
here may become consistent with happiness hereafter — that re- 
pentance is explained away or overlooked among other things 
joined with it, as saying so many prayers, and paying so much 
money. "f Some of the bishop's friends have published much 
the same description of indulgences, but in more perspicuous 
language. One of them, in his attempt to show that each pope, 
in succession, has been the Man of Sin, or Antichrist, says, 
" Besides their own personal vices, by their indulgences, par- 
dons, and dispensations, which they claim a power frorrrChrist 
of granting, and which they have sold in so infamous a manner, 
they have encouraged all manner of vile and wicked practices. 
They have contrived numberless methods of making a holy life 
useless, and to assure the most abandoned of salvation, provided 
they will sufficiently pay the priests for absolution. "J With 
the same disregard of charity and truth, another eminent divine 
speaks of the matter thus : " The Papists have taken a notable 
course to secure men from the fear of hell, that of penances and 
indulgences. — To those, who will pay the price, absolutions are 
to be had for the most abominable and hot to be named villa- 
nies, and license also for not a few wickednesses. "§ In treat- 
ing of a subject, the most intricate of itself among the common 
topics of controversy, and which has been so much confused 
and perplexed by the misrepresentations of our opponents, it 
will be necessary, for giving you, reverend sir, and my other 
Salopian friends, a clear and just idea of the matter, that I 
should advance, step by step, in my explanation of it. In this 
manner I propose showing you, first, what an indulgence is not, 
and next, what it really is. 

I. An indulgence, then, never was conceived by any Catholic 
to be a leave to commit a sin of any kind, as De Coetlogan, 
Bishop Fowler, and others, charge them with believing. The 
first principles of natural religion must convince every rational 
being, that God himself cannot give leave to commit sin. The 
idea of such a license takes away that of his sanctity, and of 
course, that of his very being. II. No Catholic ever believed 
it to be a pardon for future sins, as Mrs. Hannah More, and a 
greater part of other Protestant writers, represent the matter. 

* Confut. p. 53. 

t P. 54. Benson on the Man of Sin, repub. by Bishop Watson, Tracts, 
vol. v. p. 273. 

X Bishop Fowler's Design of Christianity, Tracts, vol. vi. p. 382. 
$ Benson on the Man of Sin. Collect. 



INDULGENCES. 



257 



This lady describes the Catholics as " procuring indemnity for 
future gratifications by temporary abstractions and indulgences, 
purchased at the court of Rome."* Some of her fraternity, 
indeed, have blasphemously written, " Believers ought not to 
mourn for sin, because it was pardoned before it was commit- 
ted :"f but every Catholic knows, that Christ himself could not 
pardon sin before it was committed, because this would imply, 
that he forgave the sinner without repentance. III. An indul- 
gence, according to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, is not, 
and does not include, the pardon of any sin at all, little or 
great, past, present, or to come, or the eternal punishment due 
to it, as all Protestants suppose. Hence if the pardon of sin is 
mentioned in any indulgence, this means nothing more than the 
remission of the temporary punishments annexed to such sin. 
IV. We do not believe an indulgence to imply any exemption 
from repentance, as Bishop Porteus slanders us ; for this is al- 
ways enjoyed or implied in the grant of it, and is indispensably ne- 
cessary for the effect of every grace :% nor from fhe works of pen- 
ance, or other good works ; because our church teaches, that the 
" life of a Christian ought to be a perpetual penance,"§ and that 
to enter into life, we must keep God's commandments, || and must 
abound in every good icork.^ Whether an obligation of all this 
can be reconciled with the articles of being "justified by faith 
only,"** and that " works done before grace partake of the na- 
ture of sin, 55 -]")- I do not here inquire. V. It is inconsistent with 
our doctrine of inherent justification,^ to believe, as the same 
prelate charges us, that the effect of an indulgence is to trans- 
fer " the overplus of the goodness," or justification of the saints, 
by the ministry of the pope, to us Catholics on earth. Such an 
absurdity may be more easily reconciled with the system of 
Luther and 6ther Protestants concerning imputed justification ; 
which, being like a " clean, neat cloak, thrown over a filthy 
leper,"§§ may be conceived transferable from one person to ano- 
ther. Lastly, whereas the Council of Trent calls indulgences 

; * Strictures on Female Education, vol. ii. p. 239. 
t Eaton's Honeycomb of Salvation. See also Sir Richard Hill's Letters, 
t Concil. Trid. Sess. vi. 4. c. 13, &c. § Sess. xiv. De Extr. Unc. 

|| Sess. vi. can. 19. 

IT Sess. vi. cap. 16. — N. B. There are eight indulgences granted to the 
Catholics of England, at the chief festivals in every year; the conditions of 
which are, confession with sincere repentance, the holy communion, alms to 
the poor, (without distinction of their religion,) prayers for the church and 
strayed souls, the peace of Christendom, and the blessing of God on this na- 
tion ; finally, a disposition to hear the word of God, and to assist the sick. 
See Laity's Directory \ the. Garden of the Soul, and other Catholic books of 
prayer. ** Art. XI. of 39 Art. tt Art. XIII, 

XX Trid. Sess. vi. can. 11. Becanus de Justif, 

22* 



258 



LETTER XLII. 



heavenly treasures,* we hold that it would be a sacrilegious 
crime in any person whomsoever, to be concerned in buying or 
selling them. I am far, however, reverend sir, from denying 
that indulgences have ever been sold :f — alas, what is so sacred 
that the avarice of man has not put up for sale ! — Christ him- 
self was sold, and that by an apostle, for thirty pieces of silver. 
I do not retort upon you the advertisements I frequently see in 
the newspapers, about buying and selling benefices, with the 
cure of souls annexed to them, in your church ; but this I con- 
tend for, that the Catholic Church, so far from sanctioning this 
detestable simony, has used her utmost pains, particularly in the 
General Councils of Lateran, Lyons, Vienne, and Trent, to pre- 
vent it. 

To explain, now, in a clear and regular manner, what an in- 
dulgence is : I suppose, first, that no one will deny that a sover- 
eign prince, in showing mercy to a capital convict, may either 
grant him a remission of all punishment, or may leave him 
subject to some lighter punishment ; of course he will allow 
that the Almighty may act in either of these ways, with respect 
to sinners. II. I equally suppose that no person who is versed 
in the Bible will deny, that many instances occur there of God's 
remitting the essential guilt of sin, and the eternal punishment 
due to it, and yet leaving a temporary punishment to be endured 
by the penitent sinner. Thus, for example, the sentence of 
spiritual death and everlasting torments was remitted to our first 
father, upon his repentance, but not that of corporal death. 
Thus, also, when God reversed his severe sentence against the 
idolatrous Israelites, he added, " Nevertheless, in the day, when 
I visit, I will visit their sin upon them. 55 Exod. xxxii. 34. 
Thus, again, when the inspired Nathan said to the model of 
penitents, David, " The Lord hath put away thy sin,' 5 he added, 
"Nevertheless, the child that is born unto thee shall die." 2 
Kings, alias Sam., xii. 14. Finally, when David's heart smote 
him, after he had numbered the people, the Lord, in pardoning 
him, offered him by his prophet, Gad, the choice of three tem- 
poral punishments, war, famine, or pestilence. Ibid. xxiv. 
III. The Catholic Church teaches that the same is still the common 
course of God's mercy and wisdom, in the forgiveness of sins 
committed after baptism, since she has formally condemned the 
proposition, that " every penitent sinner who, after the grace of 
justification, obtains the remission of his guilt and eternal pun- 

* Sess. xxi. c. 9. 

t The bishop tells us that he is in possession of an indulgence, lately 
granted at Rome for a small sum of money ; but he does not say who granted 
it. In like manner he may buy forged bank notes and counterfeit coin in 
London, very cheap p if he pleases. 



INDULGENCES. 



259 



ishment, obtains also the remission of all temporal punishment."* 
The essential guilt and eternal punishment of sin. she declares, 
can only be expiated by the precious merits of our Redeemer, 
Jesus Christ; but a certain temporal punishment God reserves 
for the penitent himself to endure, " lest the easiness of his par- 
don should make him careless about falling back into sin.""{* 
Hence satisfaction for this temporal punishment has been insti- 
tuted by Christ, as a part of the sacrament of penance ; and 
hence " a Christian life," as the council has said above, " ought 
to be a penitential life." This council, at the same time, de- 
clares, that this very satisfaction for temporal punishment is 
only efficacious through Jesus Chrut.i. Nevertheless, as the 
promise of Christ to the apostles, to St. Peter in particular, and 
to the successors of the apostles, is unlimited: "WHATSO- 
EVER you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in 
heaven," Matt, xviii. 18 — xvi. 19 ; hence the church be- 
lieves and teaches, that her jurisdiction extends to this very sat- 
isfaction, so as to be able to remit it wholly or partially, in cer- 
tain circumstances, by what is called an INDULGENCE. § 
St. Paul exercised this power in behalf of the incestuous Co- 
rinthian, on his conversion, and at the prayers of the faithful, 
2 Cor. ii. 10: and the church has claimed and exercised the 
same power ever since the time of the apostles down to the pre- 
sent. || IV. Still this power, like that of absolution, is not arbi- 
trary ; there must be a just cause for the exercise of it ; namely, 
the greater good of the penitent, or of the faithful, or of Chris- 
tendom in general : and there must be a certain "proportion be- 
tween the punishment remitted and the good work performed. IT 
Hence, no one can ever be sure that he has gained the entire 
benefit of an indulgence, though he has performed all the con- 
ditions appointed for this end ;** and hence, of course, the pastors 
of the church will have to answer for it, if they take upon them- 
selves to grant indulgences for unworthy or insufficient purposes. 
V. Lastly, it is the received doctrine of the church, that an in- 
dulgence, when truly gained, is not barely a relaxation of the 
canonical penance enjoined by the church, but also an actual 
remission by God himself, of the whole or part of the temporal 
punishment due to it in his sight. The contrary opinion, though 
held by some theologians, has been condemned by Leo X.ff and 
Pius VI. : ±j: and, indeed, without the effect here mentioned, in- 
dulgences would not be heavenly treasures, and the use of them 

* Cone. Trid. Sess. vi. can. 30. t Sess.vi.cap. 7, 14. Sess xiv. cap. 8. 
t Ibid. § Trid. Sess. xxv. De Indulg. 

J| Tertul. in Lib. ad Martyr, e. i. St. Cypr. 1. 3. Epist. Concil. i. Nic, 
Ancyr, &c. 1T Bellarm. Lib. i. De Indulg. c. 12. ** Ibid, 

ft Art. 19, inter. Art. Damn, Lutheri: U Const. Auctor Fid, 



260 



LETTER XLII. 



would not be beneficial, but rather pernicious to Christians— con- 
trary to two declarations of the last general council, as Bellar- 

min well argues.* 

The above explanation of an indulgence, conformably to the 
doctrine of theologians, the decrees of popes, and the definitions 
of councils, ought to silence the objections, and suppress the 
sarcasms of Protestants on this head : but if it be not sufficient 
for such purpose, I would gladly argue a few points with them 
concerning their own indulgences. Methinks, reverend sir, I 
see you start at the mention of this, and hear you ask, what Pro- 
testants hold the doctrine of indulgences? I answer you, all 
the leading sects of them, with which I am acquainted. To be- 
gin with the Church of England. One of the first articles I meet 
with in its canons, regards indulgences, and the use that is to be 
made of the money paid for them.1[ In the synod of 1640, a 
canon was made which authorized the employment of commuta- 
tion-money, namely, of such sums as were paid for indulgences 
from ecclesiastical penances, not only in charitable, but also in 
public uses.J At this period the established clergy were devo- 
ting all the money they could any way procure to the war which 
Charles I. was preparing, in defence of the church and state, 
against the Presbyterians of Scotland and England ; so that, in 
fact, the money then raised by indulgences was employed in a 
real crusade. It has been before stated, that the second offspring 
of Protestantism, the Anabaptists, claimed an indulgence from 
God himself, in quality of his chosen ones, to despoil the impi- 
ous, that is, all the rest of mankind, of their property ; while the 
genuine Calvinists, of all times, have ever maintained, that 
Christ has set them free from the observance of every law, of 
God as well as of man. Agreeably to this tenet, Sir Richard 
* L. i. c. 7, Prop. 4. 

t " Ne qua fiat posthac solemnis penitentiae commutatio nisi rationibus, 
gravioribusque de causis, &c. Deinde quod mulcta ilia pecuniaria vel in 
relevam pauperum, vel in alios pios usus erogetur." Articuli pro Clero, A. 
D. 1584, Sparrow, p. 194. The next article is, " De moderandis quibusdam 
indulgentiis pro celebratione matrimonii," &c, p. 195. These indulgences 
were renewed under the same titles, in the synod held in London in 1597 
Sparrow, pp. 248, 252. 

t " That no chancellor, commissary, or official, shall have power to com. 
mute any penance, in whole or in part ; but either together with the bishop, 
&c, that he shall give a full and just account of such commutations to the 
bishop, who shall see that all such moneys shall be disposed of for charitable 
and public uses, according to law — saving always to ecclesiastical officers 
their due and accustomable fees." Canon 14. Sparrow, p. 368. In the 
remonstrance of grievances, presented by a committee of the Irish Parlia- 
ment to Charles I., one of them was, that " several bishops received great 
sums of money for commutation of penance, (that is, for indulgences,) which 
they converted to their own use." Commons' Jour, quoted by Curry, vol. i, 
p. 169. 



INDULGENCES. 



261 



Hill says: "It is a most pernicious error of the schoolmen to 
distinguish sins according to the fact, and not according to the 
person."* With respect to Patriarch Luther, it is notorious that 
he was in the habit of granting indulgences, of various kinds, to 
himself and his disciples. Thus, for example, he dispensed 
with himself and Catharine Boren, from their vows of a religious 
life, and particularly that of celibacy, and even preached up 
adultery in his public sermons. f In like manner he published 
bulls, authorizing the robbery of bishops and bishopricks, and 
the murder of popes and cardinals. But the most celebrated of 
his indulgences is that which, in conjunction with Bucer and 
Melancthon, he granted to Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, to marry 
a second wife, his former being living, in consideration, for so it 
is stated, of his protection of Protestantism.! But if any credit 
is due to this same Bucer, who, for his learning, was invited by 
Cranmer and the Duke of Somerset into England, and made the 
Divinity Professor of Cambridge, the whole business of the pre- 
tended Reformation was an indulgence for libertinism. His 
words are these : " The greater part of the people seem only 
to have embraced the gospel, in order to shake off the yoke of 
discipline and the obligation of fasting, penance, &c, which lay 
upon them in Popery, and to live at their pleasure, enjoying 
their lusts and lawless appetites without control. Hence they 
lent a willing ear to the doctrine, that we are saved by faith 
alone, and not by good works, having no relish for them."§ 

I am yours, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XLIIL— TO THE REV. ROBERT CLAYTON, M. A. 

ON PURGATORY, AND PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD, 

Reverend sir — 

In the natural order of our controversies, this is the proper 
place to treat of purgatory and prayers for the dead. On this 
subject, Bishop Porteus begins with saying, " There is no 
Scripture proof of the existence of purgatory ; heaven and hell 
we read of perpetually in the Bible ; but purgatory we never 
meet with ; though surely, if there be such a place, Christ and 
his apostles would not have concealed it from us. J/ *|| I might ex- 

* Fletcher's Checks, vol. iii. 

t " Si noln Domina, veniat ancilla," &c. Serm. de Matrim. t. v. 

t This infamous indulgence, with the deeds belonging to it, was published 
from the original by permission of a descendant of the landgrave, and repub. 
lished bv Bossuet. Variat. book vi. 

§ Bucer, De Regn. Christ. 1. i, c. 4. jj Corjfut, p. 48, 



LETTER. XLtlt. 



pose the inconclusiveness of this argument by the following pa- 
rallel one : The Scripture nowhere commands us to keep the 
first day of the week holy ; we perpetually read of sanctifying 
the Sabbath or Saturday, but never meet with the Sunday as a 
day of obligation ; though, if there be such an obligation, Christ 
and his apostles would not have concealed it from us ! I might 
likewise answer, with the bishop of Lincoln, that the inspired 
epistles, (and I may add the gospels also,) " are not to be con- 
sidered as regular treatises upon the Christian religion."* But 
I meet the objection in front, by saying, first, that the apostles did 
teach their converts the doctrine of purgatory, among their other 
doctrines, as St. Chrysostom testifies, and the tradition of the 
church proves ; secondly, that the same is demonstratively 
evinced from both the Old and New Testament. 

To begin with the Old Testament : I claim a right of con- 
sidering the two first books of Machabees, as an integral part 
of them, because the Catholic Church so considers them,f 
from whose tradition, and not from that of the Jews, as St. 
Augustin signifies,:]: our sacred canon is to be formed. Now 
in the second of these books, it is related that the pious gen- 
eral, Judas Machabeus, sent 12)000 drachmas to Jerusalem s . 
for sacrifices, to be offered for his soldiers, slain in battle ; after 
which narration, the inspired writer concludes thus; "It is 
therefore a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead, 
that they may be loosed from their sins."— 2 Mach. xii. 46. I 
need not point out the inseparable connection there is between 
the practice of praying for the dead, and the belief of an in- 
termediate state of souls ; since it is evidently needless to pray 
for the saints in heaven, and useless to pray for the reprobate 
in hell. But even Protestants, who do not receive the Books of 
Machabees as canonical Scripture, venerate them as authentic 
and holy records; as such, then, they bear conclusive testimony 
of the belief of God's people, on this head, 150 years before 
Christ. That the Jews were in the habit of practising some 
religious rites for the relief of the departed, at the beginning 
of Christianity, is clear from St. Paul's first Epistle to the Co- 
rinthians, where he mentions them, without any censure of them ;§ 
and that this people continue to pray for their deceased brethren, 
at the present time, may be learned from any living Jew. 

To come now to the New Testament: What place, I ask, 
must that be, which our Saviour calls " Abraham's bosom," 
where the soul of Lazarus reposed, Luke, xvi. 22, among the 

* Elem. of Theol. vol. i. p. 277. t Concil. Cart. iii. St. Cyp. St. Aug. 
Innoc. I. Gelas, &c. t Lib. 18. De. Civ. Dei. 

§ " Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise 
not all 7 Why are they then baptized for them ?" 1 Cor. xv. 29. 



ttratSATOftY. 



other just souls, till he by his sacred passion paid their ransom ? 
Not heaven, otherwise Dives would have addressed himself to 
God, instead of Abraham ; but evidently a middle state, as St. 
Angustin teaches.* Again, of what place is it that St. Peter 
speaks, where he says, " Christ died for our sins, being put to 
death in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit ; in which also 
coming, he preached to those spirits that Were in prison ?" 1 Pet, 
iii. 19. It is evidently the same which is mentioned in the 
Apostles' Creed : Trie descended into hell—^-hot the hell of the 
damned, to suffer their torments, as the blasphemer, Calvin,, 
asserts, j" but the prison above-mentioned, or Abraham's bosom ; 
in short, a middle state. It is of this prison, according to the 
holy fathers.^ our blessed Master speaks, where he says : " I tell 
thee, thou shalt not depart thence till thou hast paid the very 
last mite." Luke, xii. 59. — Lastly, what other sense can that 
passage of St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians bear, than that 
which the holy fathers affix to it,§ where the apostle says, " The 
day of the Lord shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try 
every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's works abide? 
he shall receive a reward. If any man's work be burnt, he 
shall suffer loss ; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by 
fire." 1 Cor. iii. 13, 15. The prelate's diversified attempts 
to explain away these scriptural proofs of purgatory, are really 
too feeble and inconsistent to merit being even mentioned. I 
might here add, as a further proof, the denunciation of Christ 
concerning blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, namely, that this 
sin " shall not be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to 
come," Mat. xii. 32 ; which words clearly imply that some sins 
are forgiven in the world to come, as the ancient fathers show;|| 
but I hasten to the proofs of this doctrine from tradition, on which 
head the prelate is so ill advised as to challenge Catholics. 

II. Bishop Porteus then advances, that " purgatory, in the 
present popish sense, was not heard of for 400 years after Christy 
nor universally received for 1000 years, nor almost in any other 
church than that of Rome to this day."1T Here are no less than 
three egregious falsities, which I proceed to show; after stating 
what his lordship seems not to know, namely, that all which is 
necessary to be believed on this subject by Catholics, is contain* 

* De Civit. Dei, 1. xv. c. 20. t Inst. I. ii. c. 16. 

t Tertul. St. Cypr. Origen, St. Ambrose, St. Jerom, &c. 

§ Origen. Horn. 14 in Levit. &r\ St. Ambrose, in Ps. 119. St. Jerom, 1, 

2, contra Jovin. St. Aug. in Ps. 37, where he prays thus : "Purify me, O 
Lord, in this life, that I may not need the chastening fire of those who will 
be saved, yet, so as by Jtre." 

|| St. Aug. De Civit. Dei, 1. 21, c. 24. St. Greg. 1. 4. Dialog. Bed, in cap. 

3. Marc. IT P. 50. 



264 



LETTER XLIIL 



ed in the following brief declaration of the Council of Trent : 
'•'There is a purgatory, and the souls detained there are helped 
by the prayers of the faithful, and particularly by the accept- 
able sacrifice of the altar."* St. Chrysostom, the light of the 
eastern church, flourished within 300 years of the age of the 
apostles, and must be admitted as an unexceptionable witness 
of their doctrine and practice. Now he writes as follows : " It 
was not without good reason ORDAINED BY THE APOS- 
TLES, that mention should be made of the dead in the tremen- 
dous mysteries, because they knew well that these would receive 
great benefit from it."f Tertullian, who lived in the age next 
to that of the apostles, speaking of a pious widow, sa)- s : " She 
prays for the soul of her husband, and begs refreshment^ for 
him." Similar testimonies of St. Cyprian, in the following age, 
are numerous. I shall satisfy myself with quoting one of them ; 
where describing the difference between some souls, which are 
immediately admitted into heaven, and others, which are detain- 
ed in purgatory, he says, " It is one thing to be waiting for par- 
don ; another to attain to glory : One thing to be sent to pris- 
on, not to go from thence till the last farthing is paid ; another 
to receive immediately the reward of faith and virtue : One 
thing to suffer lengthened torments for sin, and to be chastised 
and purified for a long time in that fire ; another to have cleans- 
ed away all sin by suffering, "§ namely, by martyrdom. It 
would take up too much time to quote authorities on this subject 
from St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Eusebius, St. Epiphanius, St. Am- 
brose, St. Jerom, St. Augustin, and several other ancient fathers 
and writers, who demonstrate, that the doctrine of the church 
was the same that it is now, not only within a thousand, but also 
within 400 years from the time of Christ, with respect both to 
prayers for the dead, and an intermediate state, which we call 
purgatory. How express is the authority of the last-named 
father, in particular, where he says and repeats : " Through the 
prayers and sacrifices of the church and alms-deeds, God deals 
more mercifully with the departed than their sins deserve !"|| 
How affecting is this saint's account of the death of his mother, 
St. Monica, when she entreated him to remember her soul at the 
altar, and When, after her decease, he performed this duty, in 
order, as he declares, " to obtain the pardon of her sins !' ; 1T As 
to the doctrine of the oriental churches, which the bishop signi- 
fies is conformable to that of his own, I affirm, as a fact which' 
has been demonstrated,** that there is not of them which agrees 

* Sess. xxv. De. Purg. t In cap. i. Philip. Horn. 3. 

t L. De Monogam. c. 10. § S. Cypr. 1. 4. ep. 2. 

||.Serm. 172. Enchirid. cap. 109, 110. IT Confess. 1. ix. c. 13. 
** See Confession of the different Oriental churches in the Perpetuity &c 



PURGATORY. 



265 



with it, nor one of them which does not agree with the Catholic 
Church, in the only two points defined by her, namely, as to 
there being a middle state, which we call purgatory, and as to 
the souls detained in it being helped by the prayers of the liv- 
ing faithful. True it is, they do not generally believe, that 
these souls are punished by a material fire ; but neither does our 
church require a belief of this opinion ; and, accordingly, she 
made a union with the Greeks in the Council of Florence, on 
their barely confessing and subscribing the aforesaid two articles. 

III. I should do an injury, reverend sir, to my cause, were I 
to pass over the concessions of eminent Protestant prelates, and 
other writers, on the matter in debate. On some occasions 
Luther admits of purgatory, as an article founded on Scripture.* 
Melancthon confesses that the ancients prayed for the dead, and 
says that the Lutherans do not find fault with it.f Calvin in- 
timates, that the souls of all the just are detained in Abraham's 
bosom till the day of judgment 4 In the first Liturgy of the 
Church of England, which was drawn up by Cranmer and Rid- 
ley, and declared by Act of Parliament to have been framed 
by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, there is an express prayer for 
the departed, that " God would grant them mercy and everlast- 
ing peace. "§ It can be shown that the following bishops of your 
church believed that the dead ought to be prayed for : Andrews, 
Usher, Montague, Taylor, Forbes, Sheldon, Barrow of St. 
Asaph's, and Blandford.|| To these I may add the religious 
Dr. Johnson, whose published Meditations prove, that he con- 
stantly prayed for his deceased wife. But what need is there 
of more words on the subject, when it is clear that modern Pro- 
testants, in shutting up the Catholic purgatory for imperfect just 
souls, have opened another general one for them, and all the 
wicked of every sort whatsoever ! It is well known that the dis- 
ciples of Calvin, at Geneva, and, perhaps, everywhere else, 
instead of adhering to his doctrine, in condemning mortals to 
eternal torments, without any fault on their part, now hold that 
the most confirmed in guilt and the finally impenitent shall, in 
the end, be saved :! thus establishing, as Fletcher of Madeley 
observes, " a general purgatory."** A late celebrated theolo- 
gical, as well as philosophical writer of our own country, Dr. 
Priestley, being on his death-bed, called for Simpson's work on 
the duration of future punishment, which he recommended in 

* Asseriiones, Art. 37. Disp. Leipsic. f Apolog. Conf. Aug. 

X Inst. 1. iii. c. 5. § See the form in Collier's Ecc. Hist. vol. ii. p. 257. 

|| Collier's Hist. — N. B. The present Bishop of Exeter, in a sermon just 
published, prays for the soul of our Princess Charlotte, " as far as this is law- 
ful and profitable." 

IT Encyclo. Art, Geneva, ** Checks to Antinom, vol 4. 

23 



266 



LETTER XLI1L 



.nese terms It contains my sentiments; we shall all meet 
finally : we only require different degrees of discipline, suited 
to our different tempers, to prepare us for final happiness.' 5 * 
Here again is a general Protestant purgatory : and why should 
Satan and his crew be denied the benefit of it 1 But to confine 
myself to eminent divines of the Established Church. One of 
its celebrated preachers, who, of course, " never mentions hell 
to ears polite," expresses his wish, " to banish the subject of 
everlasting punishment from all pulpits, as containing a doctrine, 
at once improper, and uncertain ;"| which sentiment is applaud- 
ed by another eminent divine, who reviews that sermon in the 
British Critic.J Another modern divine censures *' the threat 
of eternal perdition as a cause of infidelity. "§ The renowned 
Dr. Paley, (but here we are getting into quite novel systems of 
theology, which will force a smile from its old students, notwith- 
standing the awfulness of the subject,) Dr. Paley, I say, so far 
softens the punishment of the infernal regions, as to suppose that 5 
" There may be Very little to choose between the condition of 
some who are in hell, and others who are in heaven !"|| In the 
same liberal spirit the Cambridge Professor of Divinity teaches, 
that " God's wrath and damnation are more terrible in the sound 
than in the sense !1T and that being damned does not imply any 
fixed degree of evil."** In another part of his Lectures, he ex- 
presses his hope, and quotes Dr. Hartley, as expressing the same, 
" that all men will be ultimately happy, when punishment has 
done its work in reforming principles and conduct. "ff If this 
sentiment be not sufficiently explicit in favor of purgatory, take 
the following from a passage in which he is directly lecturing 
on the subject. " With regard to the doctrine of purgatory, 
though it may not be founded either in reason or in Scripture, 
it is not unnatural. Who can bear the thought of dwelling in 
everlasting torments ? — Yet who can say that a God, everlast- 
ingly just, will not inflict them? The mind of man seeks for 
some resource : it finds one only ; in conceiving that some tem- 
porary punishment, after death, may purify the soul from its 
moral pollutions, and make- it at least acceptable, even to a 
Deity infinitely pure."JJ 

IV. Bishop Porteus intimates, that the doctrine of a middle 
state of souls was borrowed from pagan fable and philosophy. 

* See Edinb. Review, Oct. 1806. t Sermons by the Rev. W. Gilpin, 
Preb. of Sarum. t British Critic, Jen. 1802. § Rev. Mr. Polwhele's 
Let. to Dr. Hawker. || Moral and Polit. Philos. IT Lect. vol. iii. p. 154. 

** Lect. vol. iii. p. 154. 

tt Vol. ii. p. 390. It is to be observed that the doctrine of the final sal. 
vation of the wicked is expressly condemned in the 42d Article of the 
Church of England. A. D. 1552. tt Vol. iv. p. 119. 



In answer to this, 1 say, that if Plato,* Virgil, and other hea- 
thens, ancient and modem, as likewise Mahomet and his disci- 
ples, together with the Protestant writers quoted above, have 
embraced this doctrine, it only shows how conformable it is to 
the dictates of natural religion. I have proved, by various ar- 
guments, that a temporary punishment generally remains due 
Jto sin, after the guilt and eternal punishment due to it have 
been remitted. Again, we know from Scripture, that even the 
just man falls seven times, Prov. xxiv. 17, and that men must 
give an account of every- idle word thai they speak. Matt. xii. 36. 
On the other hand, we are conscious that there is not an instant 
of our life, in which this may not suddenly terminate, without 
the possibility of our calling upon God for mercy. What, then, 
I ask, will become of souls which are surprised in either of. 
those predicaments ? We are sure, from Scripture and reason, 
that nothing denied shall enter heaven, Rev. xxi. 27 ; will then 
our just and merciful Judge make no distinction in guiltiness, as 
Bishop Fowler and other rigid Protestants maintain ?| Will he 
condemn to the same eternal punishment the poor child who has 
died under the guilt of a lie of excuse, and the abandoned 
wretch who has died in the act of murdering his father? To 
say that he will, is so monstrous a doctrine in itself, and so con- 
trary to Scripture, which declares that God will render to every 
man according to Ms deeds, Rom. ii. 6, that it seems to be uni- 
versally exploded. J The evident consequence of this is, that 
there are some venial or pardonable sins, for the expiation of 
which, as well as for the temporary punishment due to other 
sins, a place of temporary punishment is provided in the next 
life ; where, however, the souls detained may be relieved by the 
prayers, alms, and sacrifices of the faithful here on earth. O ! 
how consoling are the belief and practice of Catholics in this 
matter, compared with those of Protestants ! The latter show 
their regard for their departed friends in costly pomp and 
feathered pageantry ; while their burial service is a cold dis- 
consolate ceremony ; and as to any further communication with 
the deceased, when the grave closes on their remains, they do 
not so much as imagine any. On the other hand, we Catholics 
know, that death itself cannot dissolve the communion of saints, 
which subsists in our church, nor prevent an intercourse of 
kind, and often beneficial offices, between us and our departed 
friends. Oftentimes we can help them more effectually, in the 
other world, by our prayers, our sacrifices, our alms-deeds, than 
we could in this by any temporary benefits we could bestow 

* Plato in Georgia, Virgil's iEneid, I. 6, the Koran. 

t Calvin, I. iii. c. 12. Fowler in Watson's Tracts, vol. vi. p. 382. 

t See Dr. Hey, vol. iii. pp. 384, 451, 453. 



268 



LETTER 



upon them. Hence we are instructed to celebrate the obsequies 
of the dead by all such good works ; and, accordingly, our fu- 
neral service consists of psalms and prayers, offered up for their 
repose and eternal felicity. These acts of devotion pious Catho- 
lics perform for the deceased, who were near and dear to them, 
and indeed for the dead in general, every day, but particularly 
on the respective anniversaries of the deceased. Such benefits,, 
we are assured, will be paid with rich interest, by those souls, 
when they attain to that bliss, to which we shall have contrib- 
uted ; and if they should not be in a condition to help us, the 
God of mercy, at least, will abundantly reward our charity. 
On the other hand, what a comfort and support must it be to our 
minds, when our turn comes to descend into the grave, to re- 
flect that we shall continue to live in the constant thoughts and 
daily devotions of our Catholic relatives and friends \ 

I am, yours, &c. 

John Milnee, 



LETTER XLIV. — TO THE REV. ROBERT CLAYTON, M.A. 
EXTREME UNCTION. 

Reverend sir — 

The Council of Trent terms the sacrament of extreme unc- 
tion the consummation of penance ; and, therefore, as Bishop 
Porteus makes this the subject of a charge against our church, 
here is the proper place for me to answer it. His lordship 
writes a long chapter upon it, because his business is to gloss 
over the clear testimony which the apostle St. James bears to 
the reality of this sacrament ; in return, I shall write a short 
letter, in refutation of his chapter, because I have little more to 
do than to cite that testimony, as it stands in the New Testa- 
ment. It is as follows : " Is any man sick among you, let him 
bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, 
anointing him with oil, in the name of the Lord. And the 
prayer of faith shall save the sick man : and the Lord shall 
raise him up ; and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him. 57 
James, v. 14, 15. Here we see all that is requisite, according 
to the English Protestant Catechism, to constitute a sacrament:* 
for there " is an outward visible sign," namely, the anointing 
with oil ; there " is an inward spiritual grace given unto us,' 7 
namely, the saving of the sick, and the forgiveness of his sins. 
Lastly, there is "the ordination of Christ, as the means by 
which the same is received unless the bishop chooses to allege 

* In the Book of Common Prayer.. 



EXTREME UNCTION. 



269 



that the holy apostle fabricated a sacrament, or means of grace, 
without airy authority for this purpose from his heavenly Master. 
What then does his lordship say, in opposition to this divine 
warrant for our sacrament ? He says, that the anointing of the 
sick by elders, or old men, was the appointed method of miracu- 
lously curing them in primitive times : which would imply, that 
no Christian died in those times, except when either oil or old 
men were not to be met with ! He adds, that the forgiveness 
of the sick man's sins means the cures of his corporal diseases!* 
And after all this, he boasts of building his religion on mere 
Scripture, in its plain, unglossed meaning. j" In reading this, I 
own I cannot help revolving in my mind, the above quoted pro- 
fane parody of Luther, on the first words of Scripture, in which 
he ridicules the distortion of it by many Protestants of his time. J 
With the same confidence, his lordship adds, " Our laying aside 
a ceremony (the anointing) which has long been useless, &c, 
can be no loss, while every thing that is truly valuable in St. 
James's direction, is preserved in our office for visiting the sick."§ 
Exactly in this manner our friends the Quakers undertake to 
prove, that in laying aside the ceremony Gf washing catechu- 
mens with water, they " have preserved every thing that is 
truly valuable in the sacrament of baptism !"|] But where shall 
we' find an end of the inconsistencies and impieties of deluded 
Christians, who refuse to hear that church which Christ has ap- 
pointed to explain to them the truths of religion ? 

There is not more truth in the prelate's assertion, that there 
is no mention of anointing with oil, among the primitive Chris- 
tians, except in miraculous cures, during the first 600 years ; 
for the celebrated Origen, who was born in the age next to that 
of the apostles, after speaking of an humble confession of sins, 
as a means of obtaining their pardon, adds to it, the anointing 
with oil, prescribed by St. James. IT St. ChrysGstom, who lived 
in the fourth century, speaking of the power of priests, in re- 
mitting sin, says, " they exert it when they are called in to per- 
form the rite mentioned by St. James," &c.** The testimony of 
Pope Innocent L, in the same age, is so express as to the war- 
rant for this sacrament, the matter, the minister, and the sub- 
jects of it ;ff that though the bishop alluded to the testimony, he 
does not choose to grapple with it, or even to quote it.JJ I pass 
over the irrefragable authorities of St. Cyril of Alexandria, 
Victor of Antioch, St. Gregory the Great, and our venerable 

* Confut. p. 59. t P. 69. 

t In principio Deus creavit caelum et terram : "In the beginning the 
cuckoo devoured the sparrow and its feathers." § Confut. p. 61. 

]| Barclay's Apology, Prop. 12. V Horn. ii. in Levit. ** De Sacerd, Liii, 
ft EpLst. ad Decent. Euguh. it Confut. p, 61- 

23* 



270 



LETTER XLT. 



Bede, in order once more to recur to that short but convincing 
proof, which I have already adduced on other contested points, 
that the Catholic Church has not invented those sacraments and 
doctrines in latter ages, which Protestants assert were unknown 
in the primitive ages. Let it then be remembered, that the Nes- 
torians broke off from the communion of the church in 431, and 
the Eutychians in 451 ; that these rival sects exist, in nume- 
rous congregations, throughout the East, at the present day ; 
and that they, as well as the Greeks, Armenians, &c, main- 
tain, in belief and practice, extreme unction, as one of the seven 
sacraments. Nothing can so satisfactorily vindicate our church 
from the charge of imposition or innovation, in the particulars 
mentioned, as these facts do. How much more consistently has 
the impious friar, Martin Luther, acted, in denying at once the 
authority of St. James's epistle, and condemning it as a " chaffy 
composition, and unworthy an apostle,"* than Bishop Porteus 
and his confederates do, who attempt to explain away the cleai 
proofs of extreme unction contained in that epistle I In the 
mean time, in spite of every insult offered to the divine institu- 
tions, and every uncharitable reflection cast on themselves or 
their religious practices, pious Catholics will continue to receive, 
in the time of man's greatest need, that inestimable consolation 
and grace, which this and the other helps of their church, were 
provided by our Saviour Jesus Christ to impart.— I am, &c. 

John Milner* 



LETTER XLV. — TO THE REV. ROBERT CLAYTON, M. A. 

WHETHER THE POPE BE ANTICHRIST. 

Reverend sir — 

There remains but one more question of doctrine to be dis- 
cussed between me and your favorite controvertist, Bishop Por- 
teus, which is concerning the character and power of the pope ; 
and this he compresses into a narrow compass, among a variety 
of miscellaneous matters, in the latter part of his book. How- 
ever, as it is a doctrine of first-rate importance, against which 1 
make no doubt but several of your Salopian society have been 
early and bitterly prejudiced, I propose to treat it at some 
length, and in a regular way. To do this, I must begin with 
the inquiry, whether the pope be really and truly, " The Man 
of Sin, and the Son of Perdition," described by St. Paul, 2 
Thess. ii. 1, 10 ; in short, " The Antichrist spoken of by St. 



* " Straminosa." Prefat. in Ep. Jac, Jense de Captiv, Babyl 



ANTICHRIST. 



271 



John," 1 John ii. 18, and called by him, "A beast with seven 
heads and ten horns," Rev. xiii. 1, whose see or church is 
"the great harlot, the mother of the fornications and abomina- 
tions of the earth." Ibid. xvii. 5. I shudder to repeat these 
blasphemies, and I blush to hear them uttered by my fellow. 
Christians, and countrymen, who derive their liturgy, their min- 
istry, their Christianity and civilization, from the pope and the 
Church of Rome ; but they have been too generally taught by 
the learned, and believed by the ignorant, for me to pass them 
by in silence on this occasion. One of Bishop Porteus's col- 
leagues. Bishop Halifax, speaks of this doctrine concerning the 
pope and Rome, as long being "the common symbol of Protest- 
antism."* Certain it is, that the author of it, the outrageous 
Martin Luther, may be said to have established Protestantism 
upon this principle. He had at first submitted his religious 
controversies to the decision of the pope, protesting to him thus: 
" Whether you give life or death, approve or reprove, as you 
may judge best, I will hearken to your voice, as to that of 
Christ himself ;"f but no sooner did Pope Leo condemn his doc- 
trine, than he published his book "Against the execrable bull 
of Antichrist,"^: as he qualified it. In like manner, Melanc- 
thon, Bullin^er, and many others of Luther's followers, publicly 
maintained, " that the pope is Antichrist," as did afterwards 
Calvin, Beza, and the writers of that party in general. — -This 
party considered this doctrine so essential, as to vote it an article 
of faith, in their synod of Gap, held in 1603. § The writers in 
defence of this impious tenet in our island, are as numerous as 
those of the whole continent put together, John Fox, Whitaker, 
Fulke, Willet, Sir Isaac Newton, Mede, Lowman, Towson, 
Bicheno, Kett, &c, with the bishops, Fowler, Warburton, 
Newton, Halifax, Hurd, Watson, and others, too numerous to 
be here mentioned. One of these writers, whose work has just 
appeared, has collected from the Scriptures a new, and quite 
whimsical system, concerning Antichrist. Hitherto, Protestant 
expositors have been content to apply the character and attri- 
butes of Antichrist, to a succession of Roman pontiffs ; but the 
Rev. H. Kett professes to have discovered, that the said Anti- 
christ is, at the same time, every pope who has filled the See 
of Rome, since the year 756, to the number of 160, together 
with the whole of what he calls "the Mahometan power," from 
a period more remote by a century and a half, and the whole of 

* Sermons by Bishop Halifax, preached at the lecture founded by the 
late Bishop Warburton, to prove the apostacy of Papal Rome, p. 27. 
t Epist. ad Leon X., A. D. 1518. J Tom. ii. 

§ Bossuet's Variat, P. ii, B. 13. 



272 



LETTER XLV. 



infidelity, which he traces to a still more ancient origin than 
even Mahometanism.* 

That the first pope, St. Peter, on whom Christ declared that 
he built his church, Matt. xvi. 18, was not Antichrist, I trust I 
need not prove ; nor, indeed, his third successor in the popedom, 
St. Clement ; since St. Paul testifies of him, that his name is 
written in the look of life, Phil. iv. 3. In like manner there is 
no need of my demonstrating, that the See of Rome was not 
the harlot of Revelations, when St. Paul certified of its mem- 
bers, that their faith was spoken of throughout the whole world, 
Rom. i. 8. At what particular period, then, I now ask, as I 
asked Mr. Brown, in one of my former letters, did the grand 
apostacy take place, by which the head pastor of the church of 
Christ became his declared enemy ; in short, the antichrist, and 
by which the church, whose faith had been divinely authenti- 
cated, became the great harlot, full of the names of blasphemy ? 
This revolution, had it really taken place, would have been the 
greatest, and the most remarkable, that ever happened since the 
deluge. Hence, we might expect that the witnesses, who pro- 
fess to bear testimony to its reality, would agree as to the time 
of its taking place. Let us now observe how far this is the 
fact. The Lutheran Braunbom, who writes the most copiously, 
and the most confidently of this event, tells us, that the popish 
Antichrist was born in the year of Christ, 86, that he grew to 
his full size in 376, that he was at his greatest strength in 636, 
that he began to decline in 1086, that he would die in 1640, 
and that the world would end in 171 l.f Sebastian Francus 
affirms, that Antichrist appeared immediately after the apostles, 
and caused the external church, with its faith and sacraments, 
to disappear.^: The Protestant Church of Transylvania pub- 
lished, that Antichrist first appeared A. D. 200. § Napper de- 
clared that his coming was about 313, and that Pope Silvester 
was the man.|| Melancthon says, that Pope Zozimus, in 420, 
was the first Antichrist ;1T while Beza transfers this character 
to the great and good St. Leo, A. D. 440.** Fleming fixes on 
the year 606 as the year of this great event ; Bishop Newton on 
the year 727 ; but all agree, says the Rev. Henry Kett, " that 
the antichristian power was fully established in 757, or 758. "ft 
Notwithstanding this confident assertion, Cranmer's brother-in- 

* History of the Interpreter of Prophecy, by H. Kett, B. D. This wri- 
ter's attempt to transform the great supporters of the pope, St. Jerom, Pope 
Gregory I., St. Bernard, &c., into witnesses that the pope is Antichrist, be. 
cause they condemn certain acts as antichristian, is truly ridiculous. 

t Bayle's Diet. Braunbom. \ De Avegand Stat. Eccles. 

§ De Abolend Christ per Antichris. || Upon the Revel. 

H" In locis prostremo edit. #* In Confess. General. tt Vol. ii. p. 58 



ANTICHRIST. 



273 



law, Bullinger, had, long before, assigned the year 763 as the 
era of this grand revolution,* and Junius had put it off to 
1073. Musculus could not discover Antichrist in the church 
till about 1200, Fox not till 1300, f and Martin Luther, as we 
have seen, not till his doctrine was condemned by Pope Leo in 
1520. — Such are the inconsistencies and contradictions of those 
learned Protestants, who profess to see so clearly the verification 
of the prophecies concerning Antichrist in the Roman pontiffs. 
I say, contradictions', because those among them, who pronounce 
Pope Gregory, or Leo the Great, or Pope Silvester, to have 
been Antichrist, must contradict those others, who admit them 
to have been, respectively, Christian pastors and saints. Now 
what credit do men of sense give to an account of any sort, the 
vouchers for which contradict each other ? Certainly none at all. 

Nor are the predictions of these egregious interpreters, con- 
cerning the death of Antichrist, and the destruction of Popery, 
more consistent with one another, than their accounts of the 
birth and progress of them both. We have seen above, that 
Braunbom prognosticated that the death of the papal Antichrist 
would take place in the year 1640. John Fox foretold it would 
happen in 1666. The incomparable Joseph Mede, as the Bishop 
of Halifax calls him,:}: by a particular calculation of his own 
invention, undertook to demonstrate that the papacy would be 
finally destroyed in 1653. § The Calvinist minister, Jurieu, 
who had adopted this system, fearing that the event would not 
verify it, found a pretext to lengthen the term, first to 1690, and 
afterwards to 1710. But he lived to witness a disappointment 
at each of these periods. || Alix, another Huguenot preacher, 
predicted that the fatal catastrophe would certainly take place 
in 1716. IT Whiston, who pretended to find out the longitude, 
pretended also to discover that the popedom would terminate in 
1714 ; finding himself mistaken, he guessed a second time, and 
fixed on the year 1735.** At length, Mr. Kett, from the success 
of his Antichrist of Infidelity against his Antichrist of Popery, 
about twenty years ago, (for he feels no difficulty in dividing 
Satan against himself, Matt. xhS 6,) foretold that the long wished 
for event was at the eve of being accomplished ;ff and Mr. 
Daubeny having witnessed Pope Pius VI. in chains, and Rome 
possessed by French Atheists, with several other preachers, 
sounds the trumpet of victory, and exclaims, all is accom. 
plished4t In like manner, G. S. Faber, in his two sermons, 
before the University of Oxford, in 1799, boasts that "the im- 

* In Apoc. t In Eandem. 1 P. 286. § Bayle's Diet. || Ibid 
IT Ibid. ** Essay on Revel. tt Vol. ii. chap. L 

tt The fall of Papal Rome: 



s 



274 LETTER XLV. 

mense Gothic structure of Popery, built on superstition and but- 
tressed with tortures, has crumbled to dust." Empty triumphs 
of the enemies of the church ! They ought to have learned 
from her lengthened history, that she never proves the truth of 
Christ's promises so evidently as when she seems sinking under 
the waves of persecution : and that the chair of Peter never 
shines so gloriously as when it is filled by a dying martyr, like 
Pius VI. , or a captive confessor, like Pius VII.; however tri- 
umphant, for a time, their persecutors may appear ! 

But these dealers in prophecy undertake to demonstrate from 
the characters of Antichrist, as pointed out by St. Paul and St. 
John, that this succession of popes is the very man in question. 
Accordingly, the Bishop of LlandafF says : £< I have known the infi- 
delity of more than one young man happily removed, by showing 
him the characters of Popery delineated by St. Paul, in his pro- 
phecy concerning the man of sin, (2 Thess. ii.,) and in that con- 
cerning the apostacyof the latter times, 1 Tim. iv. 1."* In proof of 
this point, he republishes the dissenter Benson's dissertation on 
the man of sin.^ I purpose, therefore, making a few remarks 
on the leading points of this adoptive child of his lordship, as 
also upon some of the Rev. Mr. Rett's illustrations of them. 
First, then, we all know that the revelation of the man of sin will 
be accompanied with a revolt or falling of, in other words, with 
a great apostacy ; but it is a question to be discussed between 
me and Bishop Watson, whether this character of apostacy is 
more applicable to the Catholic Church, or to that class of reli- 
gionists who adopt his opinions ? To decide this point, let me 
ask, what are the first principal articles of the three creeds pro- 
fessed by his church as well as by ours, that of the a.postles, 
that of Nice, and that of St. Athanasius, as likewise of his Arti- 
cles, his Liturgy, and his Canons 1 Incontestibly those which 
profess a belief in the blessed Trinity, and the incarnation of 
the consubstantial Son of the Eternal Father. Now it is noto- 
rious, that every Catholic throughout the world holds these the 
fundamental articles of Christianity as firmly now as St. Atha- 
nasius himself did fifteen hundred years ago ; but what says his 
lordship, with numberless other Protestant Christians of this 
country, on these heads 1 Let the preface to this collection be 
consulted,:}: in which, if he does not openly deny the Trinity, he 
excuses the Unitarians, who deny it, on the ground that they 
are " afraid of becoming idolaters by worshipping Jesus Christ. "§ 
Let his charges be examined : in one of which he says to his 
clergy, that " he does not think it safe to tell them what the 



* Bishop Watson's Collect, p. 7. 
t Vol. 1, Pref. p. 15, &c. 



t Ibid. p. 268. 
$ P. 17. 



ANTICHRIST. 



275 



Christian doctrines are;"* no, not so mucn as the unity and 
trinity of God. In another, charge, however, the bishop as- 
sumes more courage, and informs his clergy, that " Protestant- 
ism consists in believing what each one pleases, and in profess- 
ing what he believes." How much should I rejoice to have 
this question of arposlacy, between the Bishop of LlandafF and me, 
decided by Luther, Calvin, Beza, Cranmer, Ridley, and James 
I., were it not for the proofs which history affords me, that, not 
content with excluding him from the class of Christians, they 
would assuredly burn hirn at the stake as an apostate. The 
second character of xlntichrist, set down by St. Paul, is, that he 
" opposeth and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that 
is worshipped ; so that, he sitteth in the temple of God, showing 
himself as if he were God." 2 Thess. ii. 4. This character 
Mr. Benson and Bishop Watson think applicable to the pope, 
who. they say, claims the attributes and homage due to the 
Deity. I leave you, reverend sir, and your friends, to judge of 
the truth of this character, when I inform you that the pope has 
his confessor, like other Catholics, to whom he confesses his sins 
in private ; and that every day, in saying mass, he bows before 
the altar, and in the presence of the people confesses that he has 
" sinned in thought, word, and deed," begging them to pray to 
God for him ; and that afterwards, in the most solemn part of 
it, he professes " his hopes of forgiveness, not through his own 
merits, but through the bounty and grace of Jesus Christ our 
Lord."-)* The third mark of Antichrist is, that his coming is ac- 
cording to the working of Satan, and in all power, and signs, and 
lying wonders. 2 Thess. ii. 9. From this passage of Holy 
Writ, it appears that Antichrist, whenever he does come, will 
work false, illusive prodigies, as the magicians of Pharaoh did. 
But, from the divine promises, it is evident that the disciples of 
Christ would continue to work true miracles, such as he himself 
wrought ; and from the testimony of the holy fathers, and all 
ecclesiastical writers, it is incontestible, that certain servants of 
God have been enabled by him to work them, from time to time, 
ever since this his promise. This I have elsewhere demon- 
strated ; as, likewise, that the fact is denied by Protestants, not 
for want of evidence, as to its truth, but because this is neces- 
sary for the defence of their system 4 Still it is false that the 
Catholic Church ever claimed a power of working miracles in the 
order of nature, as her opponents pretend. All tha t we say is, 
that God is pleased, from time to time, to illustrate the true 
church with real miracles, and thereby to show that she belongs 
to him. 

* Bishop "VWson's Charge, 1795. t Canon of ihe Mass. t Part ii. Let, xxiii. 



276 



LETTER XLV. 



The latest dealer in prophecies, who boasts that his books 
have been revised by the Bishop of Lincoln,* by way of show- 
ing the conformity between antichristian Popery and the least 
that did great signs, so that he made fire to come down from heaven 
unto the earth, in the sight of men, (Rev. xiii. 13,) says of the 
former : " Even fire is pretended to come down from heaven, as 
in the case of St. Anthony's fire"i I am almost ashamed to 
refute so illiterate a cavil. True it is, that the hospital monks 
of St. Anthony were heretofore famous for curing the erysipelas 
with a peculiar ointment, on which account that disease ac- 
quired the name of St. Anthony's fire ;% but neither these monks, 
nor any other Catholics, were used to invoke that inflammation, 
or any other burning whatsoever, from heaven, or elsewhere. 
I beg that you and your friends will suspend your opinion of 
the fourth alleged resemblance between Antichrist and the pope, 
that of persecuting the saints, till I have leisure to treat that sub- 
ject in greater detail than I can at present. I shall take no 
notice at all of this writer's chronological calculations, nor of 
the anagrams and chronograms, by which many Protestant ex- 
pounders have endeavored to extract the mysterious number of 
666 from the name or title of certain popes, further than to ob- 
serve, that ingenious Catholics have extracted the same num- 
ber from the name of Martinus Lutherus, and even from that of 
David Chrytheus, who was the most celebrated inventor of 
those riddles. 

Such are the grounds on which certain refractory children in 
modern ages, have ventured to call their true mother a prosti- 
tute, and the common father of Christians, the author of their 
own conversion from Paganism, the man of sin, and the very 
Antichrist. But they do not really believe what they declare ; 
their object being only to inflame the ignorant multitude. I 
have sufficient reason to think this, when I hear a Luther threat- 
ening to unsay all that he had said against the pope, a Melanc- 
thon lamenting that Protestants had renounced him, a Beza 
negotiating to return to him, and a late Warburton lecturer la- 
menting, on his death-bed, that he could not do the same, with- 
out impoverishing his wife and children. 

I am, &c. 

John Milner. 

* Interpret, of Prophecy, by H. Kett, LL. B. Pref. 

t Kett, vol. ii. p. 22. X Paquotius, In Molanum De Sacr. Imag 



SUPREMACY. 



277 



LETTER XL VI.— TO THE REV. ROBERT CLAYTON, M. A. 

ON THE POPE'S SUPREMACY. 
Reverend sir — • 

This acknowledges the honor of three different letters from 
you, which I have not till now been able to notice. The objec- 
tions, contained in the two former, are either answered, or will, 
with the help of God, be answered by me. The chief purport 
of your last, is to assure me, that the absurd and impious tenet, 
of the pope being Antichrist, never was a part of your faith, nor 
even your opinion ; but that having read over Dr. Barrow's 
Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy, as well as what Bishop Por- 
teus has published upon it, you cannot be but of Archbishop 
Tillotson's mind, who 1 published the above-named treatise; 
namely, that " The pope's supremacy is not only an indefensi- 
ble, but also an impudent cause ; that there is not one tolerable 
argument for it, and that there are a thousand invincible rea- 
sons against it."* Your liberality, reverend sir, on the former 
point, justifies the idea I had formed of you ; with respect to the 
second, whether the pope's claim of supremacy, or Tillotson's 
assertion concerning it, is impudent, I shall leave you to deter- 
mine, when you shall have perused the present letter. But as 
this, like other subjects of our controversy, has been enveloped 
in a cloud of misrepresentation, I must begin with dissipating 
this cloud, and with clearly stating what the faith of the Cath- 
olic Church is concerning the matter in question. 

It is not then the faith of this church, that the pope has any 
civil or temporal supremacy, by virtue of which he can depose 
princes, or give or take away the property of other persons out 
of his own domain : for even the incarnate Son of God, from 
whom he derives the supremacy which he possesses, did not claim, 
here upon earth, any right of the above-mentioned kind ; on the 
contrary, he positively declared, that his kingdom is not of this 
world ! Hence, the Catholics of both our islands have, without 
impeachment even from Rome, denied upon oath, that " the pope 
has any civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, 
directly or indirectly, within this realm. "f But, as it is unde- 
niable that different popes, in former ages, have pronounced sen- 
tence of deposition against certain contemporary princes, and as 
great numbers of theologians have held, (though not as a matter 
of faith,) that they had a right to do so ; it seems proper, by way 
of mitigating the odium which Dr. Porteus and other Protestants 
raise against them on this head, to state the grounds on which 



* Tillotson's Preface to Barrow's Treatise. 

24 



t 31 Geo, III. «. 32. 



278 



LETTER XLVI. 



the pontiffs acted, and the divines reasoned, in this business. 
Heretofore the kingdoms, principalities, and states, composing 
the Latin Church, when they were all of the same religion, 
formed, as it were, one Christian republic, of which the pope 
was the accredited head. Now, as mankind have been sensible 
at all times that the duty of civil allegiance and submission can- 
not extend beyond a certain point, and that they ought not to 
surrender their property, lives, and morality, to be sported with 
by a Nero or a Heliogabalus ; instead of deciding the nice point 
for themselves, when resistance becomes lawful, they thought it 
right to be guided by their chief pastor. The kings and princes 
themselves acknowledged this right in the pope, and frequently 
applied to him to make use of his indirect temporal power, as 
appears in numberless instances.* In latter ages, however, 
since Christendom has been disturbed by a variety of religions, 
the power of the pontiff has been generally withdrawn. Princes 
make war upon each other at their pleasure, and subjects rebel 
against their princes as their passions dictate,"}* to the great detri- 

* See in Mat. Paris, A. D. 1195, the appeal of our king, Richard I., to 
Pope Celestin III. against the Duke of Austria, for having detained him pris- 
oner at Trivallis, and the pope's sentence of excommunication against the 
duke for refusing to do him justice. 

t In every country in which Protestantism was preached, sedition and re- 
bellion, wiih the total or partial deposition of the lawful sovereign, ensued, 
not without the active concurrence of the preachers themselves. Luther 
formed a league of princes and states in Germany against the emperor, which 
desolated the empire for more than a century. His disciples, Muncer and 
Storck, taking advantage of the pretended evangelical liberty which he taught, 
at the head of 40,000 Anabaptists, claimed the empire and possession of the 
world, in quality of the meek ones, and enforced their demand with fire and 
sword, dispossessing princes and lawful owners, &c. Zuinglius lighted up a 
similar flame throughout Switzerland, at Geneva, &c, and died fighting, 
sword in hand, for the Reformation, which he preached. The United States 
embraced Protestantism, and renounced their sovereign, Philip, at the same 
time. The Calvinists of France, in conformity with the doctrine of their 
master, namely, that " Princes deprived themselves of their power when they 
resist God, and that it is better to spit in their faces than obey them," Dan. 
vi. 22, as soon as they found themselves strong enough, rose in arms against 
their sovereigns, and dispossessed them of half their dominions. Knox, 
Goodman, Buchanan, and the other preachers of Presbyterianism in Scot- 
land, having taught the people that " Princes may be deposed by their sub- 
jects, if they be tyrants against God and his truth," and that " It is blasphemy 
to say that kings are to be obeyed, good or bad," disposed them for the per- 
petration of those riots and violences, including the murder of Cardinal Beaton, 
and the deposition and capiivity of their lawful sovereign, by which Protest- 
antism was established in that country. With respect to England, no sooner 
was the son of Henry dead, than a Protestant usurper, Lady Jane, was set 
up, in prejudice of his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, and supported by 
Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Sandys, Poynet, and every reformer of any note, 
because she was a Protestant. Finally, it was upon the principles of the Re- 
formation, especially that of each man's explaining the Scripture for himself, 



SUPREMACY. 



279 



ment of both parties, as may be gathered from what Sir Edward 
Sandys, an early and zealous Protestant, writes : " The pope 
was the common father, adviser, and conductor of Christians, to 
reconcile their enmities, and decide their differences."* I have 
to observe, secondly, that the question here is nof about the 
personal qualities or conduct of any particular pope, or of the 
popes in general : at the same time, it is proper to state, that in 
a list of 253 popes who have successively filled the chair of 
3t. Peter, only a small comparative number of them have dis- 
graced it, while a great proportion of them have done honor to 
a by their virtues and conduct. On this head, I must again 
sjuote Addison, who says : " The pope is generally a man of 
.earning and virtue, mature in years and experience, who has 
,«ldom any vanity or pleasure to gratify at his people's ex- 
yense, and is neither encumbered with wife and children, or 
unstresses, "f 

In the third place, I must remind you, and my other friends, that 
I have nothing here to do with the doctrine of the pope's individual 
infallibility, (when pronouncing ex cathedra, as the term is, he ad- 
dresses the whole church, and delivers the faith of it upon some 
contested article, )J nor would you, in case you were to become 
a Catholic, be required to believe in any doctrines except such 
as are held oy the whole Catholic Church, with the pope at its 
head. But without entering into this, or any other scholastic 
question, I shall content myself with observing, that it is impos- 
sible for any man of candor and learning not to concur with a 
celebrated Protestant author, namely, Causabon, who writes 
thus : " No one who is the least versed in ecclesiastical history 
can doubt, that God made use of the holy see, during many 
ages, to preserve the doctrines of faith !"§ 

At length we arrive at the question itself, which is, whether 
the Bishop of Rome, who, by pre-eminence, is called Papa, 

and hatred of Popery, that the grand rebellion was begun and carried on, till 
the king was beheaded and the constitution destroyed. Has, then, the cause 
of humanity, or that of peace and order, been benefited by the change in 
question ? 

* Survey of Europe, p. 202. t Remarks on Italy, p. 112. 

t The following is a specimen of Barrow's and Tillotson's chicanery, in 
their Treatise of the Supremacy. Bellarmin, in working up an argument on 
the pope's infallibility, says, hy pot helically, by way of proving the falsehood 
of his opponent's doctrine, that " this doctrine would oblige the church to be- 
lieve vices to be good, and virtues to be bad, in case the pope were to err in 
teaching this." Bell, de Rom. Pont. 1. iv. c. 5. Hence these writers take oc- 
casion to affirm, that Bellarmin positively teaches that " if the pope should 
err, by enjoining vices or forbidding virtues, the church would be bound to 
believe vices to be good, and virtues evil !" P. 203. This shameful misre- 
presentation has been taken up by most subsequent Protestant controvertists. 

§ Exercit. xv. ad Annal. Baron 



280 



LETTER XLVL 



(Pope, or Father of the Faithful,) is, or is not, entitled to a supe- 
rior rank and jurisdiction above other bishops of the Christian 
church, so as to be its spiritual head here upon earth, and his 
see the centre of Catholic unity? All Catholics necessarily hold 
the affirmative of this question ; while the above-mentioned ter- 
giversating primate denies that there is a tolerable argument in 
its favor.* Let us begin with consulting the New Testament, in 
order to see whether or not the first Pope or Bishop of Rome, St. 
Peter, was any way superior to*the other apostles. St. Matthew, 
in numbering up the apostles, expressly says of him, THE 
FIRST, Simon, who is called Peter, Matt. x. 2. In like man- 
ner, the other evangelists, while they class the other apostles 
differently, still give the first place to Peter. j- In fact, as Bos- 
suet observes,^ " St. Peter was the first to confess his faith in 
Christ ;§ the first to whom Christ appeared after his resurrec- 
tion ;|| the first to preach the belief of this to the people ;1F the 
firstto convert the Jews,** and the first to receive the Gentiles, "ff 
Again, I would ask, is there no distinction implied in St. Peter's 
being called upon by Christ to declare, three several times, that 
he loved him, and even that he loved him more than his fellow- 
apostles, and in his being each time charged to feed Christ's 
lambs, and, at length, to feed his sheep also, whom the lambs are 
used to follow ?JJ What else is here signified, but that this 
apostle was to act the part of a shepherd, not only with respect 
to the flock in general, but also with respect to the pastors 
themselves ? The same is plainly signified, by our Lord's 
prayer for the faith of this apostle in particular, and the charge 
that he subsequently gave him : " Simon, Simon, behold Satan 
has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat : but I 
have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not ; and thou, being 
once converted, confirm thy brethren." Luke, xxii. 32. Is there 
no mysterious meaning in the circumstance, marked by the 
evangelist, of Christ's entering into Simon's ship in preference to 
that of James and John, in order to teach the people out of it ; 
and in the subsequent miraculous draught of fishes, together with 

* Tillotson's father was an Anabaptist, and he himself was professedly a 
Puritan preacher tiil the restoration ; so that there is reason to doubt whether 
he ever received either episcopal ordination or baptism. His successor, 
Seeker, was also a dissenter, and his baptism has been called in question. 
The former, with Bishop Burnet, was called upon to attend Lord Russell at 
his execution, when they absolutely insisted, as a point necessary for salva- 
tion, on his disclaiming the lawfulness of resistance, in any case whatever 
Presently after, the revolution happening, they themselves declared for Rus 
sell's principles. 

t Mark, iii. 16. Luke, vi. 14. Acts, i. 13. % Orat. ad Cler. 

§ Matt. xvi. 16. || Luke, xxiv. 34. T Acts, ii. 14. ** Ibid. 37— 4L 

tt Ibid, x, 47. U John, xxi. 15. 



SUPREMACY. 



281 



our Lord's prophetic declaration to Simon: Fear not; from 
henceforth thou shalt catch men ? Luke, v. 3, 10. But the strong- 
est proof of St. Peter's superior dignity and jurisdiction consists 
in that explicit and energetical declaration of our Saviour to him 
in the quarters of Cesarea Philippi, upon his making that glori- 
ous confession of our Lord's divinity : Thou art Christ, the Son 
of the living God. Our Lord had mysteriously changed his 
name at his first interview with him, when Jesus, looking upon 
him, said, "Thou art Simon, the son of Jona ; thou shalt be 
called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter," John, i. 42 ; and on 
the present occasion he explains the mystery, where he says, 
" Blessed art thou, Simon, Bar-Jona : because flesh and blood 
hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father, who is in heaven : 
and I say to thee, thou art Peter," (a rock,) " and UPON THIS 
ROCK I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH, and the gates of hell 
shall not prevail against it : and I will give to thee the keys of 
the kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, 
shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on 
earth, shall be loosed also in heaven," Matt. xvi. 17, 18, 19. 
Where now, I ask, is the sincere Christian, and especially the 
Christian who professes to make the Scripture the sole rule of 
his faith, who, with these passages of the inspired text before his 
eyes, will venture, at the risk of his soul, to deny that any spe- 
cial dignity or charge was conferred upon St. Peter in prefer- 
ence to the other apostles ? I trust no such Christian is to be 
found in your society. Now, as it is a point agreed upon, at 
least in your church and mine, that bishops, in general, succeed 
to the rank and functions of the apostles ; so, by the same rule, 
the successor of St. Peter, in the See of Rome, succeeds to his 
primacy and jurisdiction. This cannot be questioned by any 
serious Christian, who reflects that, when our Saviour gave his 
orders about feeding his jtock, and made his declaration about 
building his church, he was not establishing an order of things, 
to last during the few years that St. Peter had to live, but one 
that was to last as long as he should have a flock and a church 
on earth, that is, to the end of time — conformably with his prom- 
ise to the apostles and their successors, in the concluding words 
of St. Matthew: Behold, I am with you always, even to the end 
of the world. Matt, xxviii. 20. 

That St. Peter, (after governing, for a time, the Patriarchate 
of Antioch, the capital of the East, and thence sending his dis- 
ciple, Mark, to establish that of Africa at Alexandria,) finally 
fixed his own see at Rome, the capital of the world ; that his 
successors there have each of them exercised the power of 
supreme pastor, and have been acknowledged as such by all 
Christians, except by notorious heretics and schismatics, from 

24* 



282 



LETTER XL VI. 



the apostolic age down to the present, the writings of the fathers, 
doctors, and historians of the church unanimously testify. St. 
Paul, having been converted, and raised to the apostleship in a 
miraculous manner, thought it necessary to go up to Jerusalem 
to see. Peter, where he abode with him fifteen days, Galat. i. 18. 
St. Ignatius, who was a disciple of the apostles, and next suc- 
cessor, after Evodius, of St. Peter in the See of Antioch, ad- 
dresses his most celebrated epistle to the church, which, he 
says, " PRESIDES in the country of the Romans."* About 
the same time, dissensions taking place in the Church of Co- 
rinth, the case was referred to the Church of Rome, to which 
the holy Pope Clement, whose name is written in the book of life, 
Philipp. iv. 3, returned an apostolical answer of exhortation 
and instruction. f In the second century, St. Irenseus, who had 
been instructed by St. Polycarp, the disciple of St. John the 
Evangelist, referring to the tradition of the apostles, preserved 
in the Church of Rome, calls it " the greatest, most ancient, 
and most universally known, as having been founded by St. 
Peter and St. Paul; to which," he says, "every church is bound 
to conform, by reason of its superior authority.":}: Tertullian, 
a priest of the Roman Church, who flourished near the same 
time, calls St. Peter " the rock of the church," and says, that 
" the church was built upon him."§ Speaking of the Bishop 
of Rome, he terms him, in different places, " the blessed pope, 
the high priest, the apostolic prelate," &c. I must add, that at 
this early period, Pope Victor exerted his superior authority, by 
threatening the bishops of Asia with excommunication, for their 
irregularity in celebrating Easter, and the other moveable 
feasts ; from which rigorous measure he was deterred, chiefly 
by St. Irenseus. |j In the third century, we hear OrigenlF and 
St. Cyprian repeatedly affirming, that the church was " found- 
ed on Peter," that he " fixed his chair at Rome," that this is, 
"the mother church," and "root of Catholicity."** The latter 
expresses great indignation, that certain African schismatics 
should dare to approach "the See of Peter, the head church 
and source of ecclesiastical unity. "ff It is true, this father 
afterwards had a dispute with Pope Stephen, about rebaptizing 
converts from heresy ; but this proves nothing more, than that 
he did not think the pope's authority superior to general tradi- 
tion, which, through mistake, he supposed to be on his side. 
To what degree, however, he did admit this authority, appears 

* UpoKddrjrat, Epist. Ignat. Cotelero. t Coteler. 

$ "Ad hanc ecclesiam convenire, necesse est omnem ecclesiam." Con. 
tra Hseres. I. iii. c. 3. § Prescrip. 1. i. c. 22, De Monogam. 

|| Euseb. His. Eccles. 1. v. c. 24. IT Horn. 5 in Exord. Horn. 17 in Luc. 
** Ep. ad Cornel. Ep. ad Anton. De Unit, &c. tt Ep, ad Cornel 55. 



SUPREMACY. 



283 



by his advising the same pope to depose Marcian. a schismatical 
Bishop of Gaul, and to appoint another bishop in his place.* 
At the beginning of the fourth century, we have the learned 
Greek historian Eusebius, explaining in clear terms the ground 
of the Roman pontiff's claim to superior authority, which he de- 
rives from St. Peter ;f we have also the great champion of 
orthodoxy, and the patriarch of the second see in the world, St. 
Athanasius, appealing to the Bishop of Rome, which see he 
terms "the mother and the head of all other churches.":}: In 
fact, the pope reversed the sentence of deposition, pronounced 
by the saint's enemies, and restored him to his patriarchal 
chair. § 

Soon after this, the Council of Sardica confirmed the Bishop 
of Rome in his right of receiving appeals from all the churches 
in the world. || Even the pagan historian, Ammianus, about 
the same time bears testimony to the superior authority of the 
Roman pontifF.1T In the same century, St. Basil, St. Hilary, 
St. Epiphanius, St. Ambrose, and other fathers and doctors, 
teach the same thing. Let it suffice to say, that the first 
named of these, scruples not to advise that the pope should send 
visiters to the eastern churches, to correct the disorders which 
the Arians had caused in them ;** and that the last mentioned 
represents communion with the Bishop of Rome, as communion 
with the Catholic Church. ff I must add, that the great St. Chry- 
sostom having been soon after unjustly deposed from his see in 
the eastern metropolis, was restored to it by the authority of 
Pope Innocent ; that Pope Leo termed his church " the head 
of the world," because its spiritual power, as he alleged, ex- 
tended further than the temporal power of Rome had ever ex- 
tended. :£t Finally, the learned St. Jerom, being distracted with 
the disputes among three parties, which divided the Church of 
Antioch, to which church he was then subject, wrote for direc- 
tions, on this head, to Pope Damasus, as follows : " I, who am 
but a sheep, apply to my shepherd for succor. I am united in 
communion with your holiness ; that is to say, with the chair 
of Peter. I know that church is built upon that rock. He 
who eats the paschal lamb out of that house is profane. Who- 
ever is not in Noah's ark will perish by the deluge. I know 

* Ep. 29. t Euseb. Chron. An. 44. \ Epist. ad Marc. 

§ Socrat. Hist. 1. ii. c. 2. Zozom. |j Can. 3. IF Rerum Gest. 1. xv, 

** Epist. 52. tt Orat. in Obit Satyr. 

tt Serm. de Nat. Apos. This sentiment, another father of the church, in 
the following century, St. Prosper, expressed in these lines :— 
" Sedes Roma Petri, quae, pastoralis honoris 
Facta caput mundo, quidquid non possidet armis, 
Religione tenet," 



284 



LETTER XLVI. 



nothing of Vitalis, I reject Meletius, I am ignorant of Paulinus: 

he who does not gather with thee, scatters," &c* It were use- 
less, after this, to cite the numerous testimonies to the pope's 
supremacy, which St. Augustin, and all the fathers, doctors, 
and church historians, and all the general councils bear, down 
to the' present time. However, as the authority of our apostle, 
Pope Gregory the Great, is claimed by most Protestant divines 
on their side, and is alluded to by Bishop Porteus,f merely for 
having censured the pride of John, Patriarch of Constantinople, 
in assuming to himself the title of (Ecumenical or universal 
bishop ; it is proper to show, that this pope, like all the others 
who went before him, and came after him, did claim and exercise 
the power of supreme pastor, throughout the church. Speaking 
of this very attempt of John, he says : " The care of the whole 
church was committed to Peter, and yet he is not called the 
universal apostle. "J With respect to the See of Constantino- 
ple, he says: " Who doubts but it is subject to the apostolical 
see V and again, " When bishops commit a fault, I know not 
what bishop is not subject to it," (the See of Rome.)§ As no 
pope was ever more vigilant in discharging the duties of his ex- 
alted station, than St. Gregory, so none of them, perhaps, exer- 
cised more numerous or widely extended acts of the supremacy, 
than he did. It is sufficient to cite here his directions to St. 
Augustin of Canterbury, whom he had sent into this island for 
the conversion of our Saxon ancestors, and who had consulted 
him, by letter, how he was to act with respect to the French 
bishops, and the bishops of this island, namely, the British pre- 
lates in Wales, and the Pictish and Scotch in the northern 
parts ? To this question Pope Gregory returns an answer in 
the following words : " We give you no jurisdiction over the 
bishops of Gaul, because, from ancient times, my predecessors 
have conferred the pallium (the ensign of legatine authority) on 
the Bishop of Aries, whom we ought not to deprive of the au- 
thority he has received. But we commit all the bishops of 
Britain to your care, that the ignorant among them may be in- 
structed, the weak strengthened, and the perverse corrected by 
your authority. "|j After this, is it possible to believe, that 
Bishop Porteus and his fellow-writers ever read Venerable 
Bede's History of the English Nation ? But if they could ever 
succeed in proving, that Christ had not built his church upor 
St. Peter and his successors, and had not given to them the key? 
of the kingdom of heaven ; it would still remain for them to 
prove that he had founded any part of it on Henry VIII., Ed- 

* Ep. ad Damas. t P. 78. \ Ep. Greg. 1. v. 20. § L. ix. 59. 
i! His. Bed. L i. c. 27. Resp. 9. Spelm. Council, p. 98. 



SUPREMACY. 



285 



ward VI. and their successors, or that he had given the mystical 
keys to Elizabeth and her successors. I have shown, in a for- 
mer letter, that these sovereigns exercised a more despotic power 
over all the ecclesiastical and spiritual affairs of this realm, 
than any pope ever did, even in the city of Rome ; and that 
the changes in religion, which took place in their reigns, were 
effected by them and their agents, not by the bishops or any 
clergy whatever ; and yet no one will pretend to show from 
Scripture, tradition, or reason, that these princes had received 
any greater power from Christ, over the doctrine and discipline 
of his church, than he conferred upon Tiberius, Pilate, or He- 
rod, or than he has given, at the present day, to the great Turk 
or the Lama of Thibet, in 'their respective dominions. 

Before I close this letter, I think it right to state the senti- 
ments of a few eminent Protestants, respecting the pope's su- 
premacy. I have already mentioned that Luther acknowledged 
it, and submissively bowed to it, during the three first years of 
his dogmatizing about justification ; and till his doctrine was 
condemned at Rome. In like manner, our Henry VIII. asserted 
it, and wrote a book in defence of it ; in reward of which the 
pope conferred upon him and his successors the new title of 
Defender of the Faith. Such was his doctrine; till, becoming 
amorous of his queen's maid of honor, Ann Bullein, and finding 
the pope conscientiously inflexible, in refusing to grant him a 
divorce from the former, and to sanction an adulterous con- 
nection with the latter, he set himself up as supreme head of the 
Church of England, and maintained his claim by the arguments 
of halters, knives, and axes. James I. in his first speech in 
Parliament, termed Rome "the mother church," and in his 
writings allowed the pope to be " the Patriarch of the West." 
The late Archbishop Wake, after all his bitter writings against 
the pope and the Catholic Church, coming to discuss the terme 
of a proposed union between this church and that of England, 
expressed himself willing to allow a certain superiority to the 
Roman pontiff.* Bishop Bramhall had expressed the same 
sentiment, f sensible, as he was, that no peace or order could 
subsist in the Christian church, any more than in a political 
state, without a supreme authority. Of the truth of this maxim, 
two others, among the greatest men whom Protestantism has to 
boast of, the Lutheran Melancthon, and the Calvinist Hugo 
Grotius, were deeply persuaded. The former had written to 
prove the pore to be Antichrist ; but seeing the animosities, the 
divisions, the errors, and the impieties of the pretended reform- 

* " Suo gaudeat qualicunque Primatu. See Machine's Third Appendix 
to Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. vol. v. + Answer to Militiere. 



LETTER XLVtt* 



ers, with whom he was connected, and the utter impossibility of 
putting a stop to these evils, without returning to the ancient 
system, he wrote to Francis I. of France : " We acknowledge, 
in the first place, that ecclesiastical government is a thing holy 
and salutary ; namely, that there should be certain bishops to 
govern the pastors of several churches, and that THE RO- 
MAN PONTIFF should be above all the bishops. For the 
church stands in need of governors, to examine and ordain those 
who are called to the ministry, and to watch over their doc* 
trine ; so that, if there were no bishops, they ought to be crea* 
ted."* The latter great man, Grotius, was learned, wise, and 
always consistent. In proof of this he wrote as follows, to the 
minister, Rivet: "All who are acquainted with Grotius, know 
how earnestly he has wished to see Christians united together 
in one body. This he once thought might have been accom- 
plished by a union among Protestants ; but, afterwards, he saw 
that this is impossible. Because, not to mention the aversion of 
Calvinists to every sort of union, Protestants are not bound by 
any ecclesiastical government, so that they can neither be uni- 
ted at present, nor prevented from splitting into fresh divisions. 
Therefore Grotius now is fully convinced, as many others are 
also, that Protestants never can be united among themselves, 
unless they join those who adhere to the Roman See ; without 
which there never can be any general church government. 
Hence, he wishes that the revolt and the causes of it may be 
removed ; among which causes, the primacy of the Bishop of 
Rome was not one, as Melancthcn confessed, who also thought 
that primacy necessary to restore union." 

I am, yours, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XLVII. — TO JAMES BROWN, J UN., ESQ., 

ON THE LANGUAGE OF THE LITURGY, AND ON 
READING THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

Dear sir — 

I agree with your worthy father, that the departure of the 
Rev. Mr. Clayton to a foreign country, is a loss to your Salopian 
Society in more respects than one ; and as it is his wish that I 
should address the few remaining letters I have to write, in an- 

* D'Argentre, Collect. Jud. t. i. p. 2. — Bercastle and Feller relate, that 
Melancihon's mother, who was a Catholic, having consulted him about her 
religion, he persuaded her to continue in it. 



LANGUAGE OF LlTtTitGlT. 



28? 



swer to Bishop Porteus's book, to you, sir, who, it seems, agree 
5 with him in the main, but not altogether, on religious subjects, 
i I shall do so for your own satisfaction and that of your friends, 
who are still pleased to hear me upon them. Indeed the re- 
1 maining controversies between that prelate and myself are of 
• light moment, compared with those I have been treating of, as 
1 they consist chiefly of disciplinary matters, subject to the con- 
trol of the church, or of particular facts, misrepresented by his 
lordship. 

The first of these points of changeable discipline, which the 
bishop mentions, or rather declaims upon throughout a whole 
chapter, is ihe use of the Latin tongue in the public liturgy of the 
Latin Church. It is natural enough that the Church of England, 
which is of modern date, and confined to its own domain, should 
adopt its own language, in its public worship ; and, for a simi- 
lar reason, it is proper that the Great Western or Latin Church, 
which was established by the apostles, when the Latin tongue 
was the vulgar tongue of Europe, and which still is the com- 
mon language of educated persons in every part of it, should 
retain this language in her public service. When the bishop 
complains of " our worship being performed in an unknown 
tongue" and of our " wicked and cruel cunning, in keeping 
people in darkness," by this means, under pretext that " they 
reverence what they do not understand," he must be conscious 
of the irreligious calumnies he is uttering ; knowing, as he does, 
that Latin is, perhaps, still the most general language of Chris- 
tianity,* and that where it is not commonly understood, it is not 
the church which introduced a foreign language among the people^ 
but it is the people who have forgotten their ancient language. 
So far removed is the Catholic Church from " the wicked and 
cruel cunning of keeping people in ignorance," by retaining her 
original apostolical languages, the Latin and the Greek ; that 
she strictly commands her pastors everywhere, " to inculcate 
the word of God, and the lessons of salvation, to the people in 
their vulgar tongue, every Sunday and Festival throughout the 
year,"!" and to " explain to them the nature and meaning of her 
divine worship as frequently as possible.":}: In like manner, 
we are so far from imagining, that the less our people under- 
stand of our liturgy, the more they reverence it, that we are 
quite sure of precisely the contrary ; particularly with respect 
to our principal liturgy, the adorable sacrifice of the Mass. 

* The Latin language is vernacular in Hungary and the neighboring coun- 
tries ; it is taught in all the Caiholic settlements of the universe : and it ap- 
proaches so near to the Italian, Spanish, and French, as to be understood, 
in a general kind of way, by thuse who use these languages. 

+ Concil. Trid. Sess. xxiv. c. 7. t Idem. Sess. xxi. c. 8. 



288 



LETTER XLVli. 



True it is, that a part of this is performed by the priest in silence ; 
because, being a sacred action, as well as a form of words, some 
of the prayers which the priest says, would not be proper or 
rational in the mouths of the people.- — Thus, the high priest of 
old went alone into the tabernacle, to make the atonement :* and 
thus Zachary offered incense in the temple by himself; while 
the multitude prayed without. f But this is no detriment to the 
faithful, as they have translations of the liturgy, and other 
books in their hands, by means of which or of their own devo- 
tion, they can join with the priest in every part of the solemn 
worship ; as the Jewish people united with their priests, in the 
sacrifices above-mentioned. 

But we are referred by his lordship to 1 Cor. xiv., in order 
" to see what St. Paul would have judged of the Romanists' 
practice, in retaining the Latin liturgy;" which, after all, he 
himself and St. Peter established where it now prevails. I an- 
swer, that there is not a word in that chapter which mentions or 
alludes to the public liturgy, which at Corinth was, as it is still, 
performed in the old Greek ; the whole of it regarding an im- 
prudent and ostentatious use of the gift of tongues in speaking 
all kinds of languages; which gift many of the faithful possess- 
ed at the time, in common with the apostles. The very reason, 
alleged by St. Paul, for prohibiting extempore prayers and ex- 
hortations, which no one understood, namely, that all things 
should be done decently and according to order, is the principal 
motive of the Catholic Church for retaining, in her worship, the 
original languages employed by the apostles. She is, as I be- 
fore remarked, a universal church, spread over the face of the 
globe, and composed " of all nations, and tribes, and tongues," 
Rev. vii. 9, and these tongues constantly changing; so, that in- 
stead of the uniformity of worship, as well as of faith, which is 
so necessary for that decency and order, there would be nothing 
but confusion, disputes, and changes in every part of her liturgy, 
if it were performed in so many different languages and dialects; 
with the constant danger of some alteration or other in the es- 
sential forms, which would vitiate the very sacrament and sac- 
rifice. The advantage of an ancient language, for religious 
worship, over a modern one, in this and other respects, is ac- 
knowledged by the Cambridge Professor of Divinity, Dr. Hey. 
He says, that such a one " is fixed and venerable, free from 
vulgarity, and even more perspicuous."! But to return to Bishop 
Porteus's appeal to the judgment of St. Paul, concerning " the 
Romanists' practice, in retaining the language with the sub- 
stance of their primitive liturgy," I leave you, dear sir, and 



* Levit. xvi, 17, t Luke i. 10. 



X Lectures, Vol. iv. p. 191 



PROHIBITION OE SCRIPTURES. 



289 



your friends, to pronounce upon it, after I shall have stated the 
following facts : 1st, that St. Paul himself wrote an epistle, 
which forms part of the liturgy of all Christian churches, to 
these very Romanists, in the Greek language, though they them- 
selves made use of the Latin :* 2dly, that the Jews, after they 
had exchanged their original Hebrew for the Chaldaic tongue, 
during the Babylonish captivity, continued to perform their litur- 
gy in the former language, though the vulgar did not understand 
it :f and that our Saviour Christ, as well as his apostles, and 
other devout friends, attended this service in the temple, and the 
Synagogue, without ever censuring it : 3dly, that the Greek 
churches, in general, no less than the Latin Church, retain their 
original pure Greek tongue in their liturgy, though the common 
people have forgotten it, and adopted different barbarous dialects 
instead of it :% 4thly, that Patriarch Luther maintained, against 
Carlostad, that the language of public worship was a matter of 
indifference. Hence, his disciples professed, in their Augsburg 
Confession, to retain the Latin language in certain parts of their 
service. Lastly, that when the Establishment endeavored, under 
Elizabeth, and afterwards under Charles I. to force their liturgy 
upon the Irish Catholics, it was not thought necessary to trans- 
late it into Irish, but it was constantly read in English, of which 
the natives did not understand a word : thus " furnishing the 
papists with an excellent argument against themselves," as Dr. 
Hey 1 in observes. § 

The bishop has next a long letter on what he calls the prohi- 
bition of the Scriptures, by the Romanists ; in which he confuses 
and disguises the subjects he treats of, to beguile and inflame 
ignorant readers. I have treated this matter, at some length, 
in a former letter, and therefore shall be brief in what I write 
upon it in this : but what I do write shall be explicit and clear. 
It is a wicked calumny then, that the Catholic Church under- 
values the Holy Scriptures, or prohibits the use of them. On 
the contrary, it is she that has religiously preserved them, as 
the inspired word of God, and his invaluable gift to man, during 
these eighteen centuries : it is she alone that can and does 
vouch for their authenticity, their purity, and their inspiration. 
But then, she knows that there is an unwritten word of God, 
called tradition, as well as a written word, the Scriptures ; that 
the former is the evidence for the authority of the latter, and that 
when nations had been converted, and churches formed by the 
unwritten word, the authority of this was nowise abrogated 

* St. Jerom, Episf. 123. t Walton's Polyglot Proleg. Hey, &c. 

X Mosheim, by Machine, vol. ii. p. 575. 

§ Ward has successfully ridiculed this attempt in his England's Reforma- 
tion, Canto II. 

25 



290 



LETTER TLVlt* 



by the inspired epistles and gospels, which the apostles and 
evangelists occasionally sent to such nations or churches. In 
short, both these words together form the Catholic rule of faith* 
On the other hand, the church, consisting, according to its more 
general division, of two distinct classes, the pastors and their 
flocks, the preachers and their hearers ; each has his particular 
duties in the point under consideration, as well as in other re- 
spects. The pastors are bound to study the rule of faith in 
both its parts, with unwearied application, to be enabled to ac- 
quit themselves of the first of all their duties, that of preaching 
the gospel to their people.* Hence St. Ambrose calls the sacred 
Scripture the Sacerdotal Book, and the Council of Cologne or- 
ders that it should " never be out of the hands of ecclesiastics. " 
In fact, the Catholic clergy must, and do employ no small por- 
tion of their time, every day, in reading different portions of 
Holy Writ. But no such obligation is generally incumbent on 
the flock, that is, on the laity ; it is sufficient for them to hear 
the word of God from those whom God has appointed fo an- 
nounce and to explain it to them, whether by sermons, or cate- 
chisms, or other good books, or in the tribunal of penance. 
Thus, it is not the bounden duty of all good subjects to read and 
study the laws of their country : it is sufficient for them to hear 
and to submit to the decisions of the judges, and other legal offi- 
cers, pronouncing upon them ; and, by the same rule, the latter 
would be inexcusable if they did not make the law and consti- 
tution their constant study, in order to decide right. Still, how- 
ever, the Catholic Church never did prohibit the reading of the 
Scriptures to the laity : she only required, by way of prepara- 
tion for this most difficult and important study, that they should 
have received so much education as would enable them to read 
the sacred books in their original languages, or in that ancient 
and venerable Latin version, the fidelity of which she guaran- 
tees to them ; or in case they were desirous of reading it in a 
modern tongue, that they should be furnished with some attesta- 
tion of their piety and docility, in order to prevent their turning 
this salutary food of souls into a deadly poison, as, it is univer- 
sally confessed, so many thousands constantly have done. At 
present, however, the chief pastors have everywhere relaxed 
these disciplinary rules ; and vulgar translations of the whole 
Scripture are upon sale, and open to every one, in Italy itself, 
with the express approbation of the Roman pontiff. In these 
islands, we have an English version of the Bible in folio, in 
quarto, and in octavo forms, against which our opponents have 
no other objection to make, except that it is too literal,! that is, 

* Trid. Sess. v. cap. 2. Gess. xxv. cap. 4. 

t See the Bishop of Lincoln's Elements of Theol. vol. ii. p. 10. 



PROHIBITION OF SCR If TUBES, 



291 



too faithful.— -But Dr. Porteus professes not to admit of any re- 
striction whatever, " on the reading of what heaven hath re- 
vealed, with respect to any part or mankind." No doubt, the 
revealed irnlhs themsefaes are to be made known as much as pos- 
sible to all mankind ; but it does not follow from hence, that all 
mankind are to read the Scriptures : there are passages in them, 
which, I am confident, his lordship would not wish his daugh- 
ters to peruse ; and which, in fact, were prohibited to the Jews 
till they had attained the age of thirty.* Again, as Lord 
Clarendon, Mr. Grey. Dr. Hey, &c, agree, that the misappli- 
cation of Scripture was the cause of the destruction of church 
and state, and of the murder of the king in the grand rebellion ; 
and as he must be sensible, from his own observation, that the 
same cause exposed the nation to the same calamities in the 
Protestant riots of 1780, T am confident the bishop, as a Chris- 
tian, no less than as a British subject, would have taken the 
Bible out of the hands of Hugh Peters, Oliver Cromwell, Lord 
George Gordon, and their respective crews, if this had been in 
his power. I will affirm the same, with respect to Count 
Emanuel Swedenborg, the founder of the modern sect of New 
Jerusalemites, who taught that no one had understood the Scrip- 
tures, till the sense of them was revealed to him ; as also with 
respect to Joanna Southcote, foundress of a still more modern 
sect, and who, I believe, tormented the bishop himself with her 
rhapsodies, in order to persuade him that she wa? the woman 
of Genesis, destined to crush the serpent's head, and the woman 
of the Revelations, clothed with the sun, and croicned with twelve 
stars. Nay, I greatly deceive myself if the prelate would not 
be glad to take away every hot-brained dissenter's Bible, who 
employs it in persuading the people that the Church of Eng- 
land is a rag of Popery, and a spawn of the whore of Babylon. 
In short, whatever Dr. Porteus may choose to say of an unre- 
stricted perusal and interpretation of the Scriptures, with respect 
to all sorts of persons, it is certain, that many of the wisest and 
most learned divines of his church have lamented this as one of 
her greatest misfortunes. I will quote the words of one of them. 
" Aristarchus of old, could hardly find seven wise men in all 
Greece ; but amongst us, it is difficult to find the same num- 
ber of ignorant persons. They are all doctors and divinely in- 
spired. There is not a fanatic or a mountebank, from the low- 
est class of the people, who does not vent his dreams, for the 
word of God. The bottomless pit seems to be opened, and there 
come out of it locusts with stings ; a swarm of sectaries and 



St. Jerom in Proem, to Ezech. St. Greg. Naz. de Moderand. Disp. 



292 



LETTER XL VII * 



heretics, who have renewed all the heresies of former ages, 
and added to them numerous and monstrous errors of their 
own.*" 

Since the above was written, the Bibliomania, or rage for the 
letter of the Bible, has been carried, in this country, to the ut- 
most possible length, by persons of" almost every description, 
Christians and infidels ; Trinitarians, who worship God in three 
persons, and Unitarians, who hold such worship to be idola- 
trous ; Psedobaptists, who believe they become Christians by 
baptism ; Anabaptists, who plunge such Christians into the wa- 
ter, as mere pagans; and Quakers, who ridicule all baptism, 
except that of their own imagination ; Arminian Methodists, 
who believe themselves to have been justified without repent- 
ance, and Antinomian Methodists, who maintain that they shall 
be saved without keeping the laws either of God or man ; 
Churchmen, who glory in having preserved the whole orders, 
and part of the missal and ritual of the Catholics; and the 
countless sects of dissenters, who join in condemning these 
things as antiehristian Popery. All these have forgotten, for a 
long time, their characteristical tenets, and united in enforcing 
the reading of the Bible as the only thing necessary ! The Bible 
societies are content that all these contending religionists should af- 
fix whatever meaning they please to the Bible, provided only they 
read the text of the Bible ! Nay, they are satisfied if they can 
but get the Hindoo worshippers of Juggernaut, the Thibet ado- 
rers of the Grand Lama, and the Taboo cannibals of the Pacific 
Ocean, to do the same thing ; vainly fancying that this lecture 
will reform the vicious, reclaim the erroneous, and convert the 
pagans. In the mean time, the experience of fourteen years 
proves, that theft, forgery, robbery, murder, suicide, and other 
crimes go on increasing with the most alarming rapidity ; thai 
every sect clings to its original errors, that not one pagan is con- 
verted to Christianity, nor one Irish Catholic persuaded to ex- 
change his faith for a Bible book. When will these Bible en- 
thusiasts comprehend what learned and wise Christians of every 
age have known and taught, that the word of God consists not in 
the letter of Scripture, but in the meaning of it ! Hence it fol- 
lows, that a Catholic child, who is grounded in his short but 
comprehensive First Catechism, so called, knows more of the re- 
vealed word of God, than a Methodist preacher does, who has 
read the whole Bible ten .times over. The sentiment expressed 
above is not only that of St. Jeromf and other Catholic writers, 
but also of the learned Protestant bishop whom I have already 
quoted. He says, "The word of God does not consist in mere 



Walton's Polyglot Frolegom. 



t Cap. I. ad Galat. 



VARIOUS MISREPRESENTATIONS. 



293 



letters, but in the sense of it, which no one can better interpret 
than the true church, to which Christ committed this sacred de- 
posit."* — I am, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XLVIIL— TO JAMES BROWN, JUN., ES^. 

ON VARIOUS MISREPRESENTATIONS. 
Dear sir — 

The learned prelate, who is celebrated for having concentra- 
ted the five sermons of his patron, Archbishop Seeker, and the 
more diffusive declamation of Primate Tillotson against Popery, 
having gone through his regular charges on this topic, tries, in 
the end, to overwhelm the Catholic cause, with an accumula- 
tion of petty, or, at least, secondary objections, in a chapter 
which he entitles, Various Corruptions* and Superstitions of V »■ 
Church of Rome. The first of these is, that Catholics " equa 
the apochryphal with the canonical books" of Scripture ; to 
which I answer, that the same authority, namely, the authority 
of the Catholic Church, in the fifth century, which decided on 
the canonical character of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Rev- 
elations, and five other books of the New Testament, on the 
character of which, till that time, the fathers and ecclesiastical 
writers were not agreed, decided also on the canonicity of the books 
of Tobias, Judith, and five other books of the Old Testament, 
being those which the prelate alludes to as apochryphal. If 
the church of the fifth century deserves to be heard in one part 
of her testimony, she evidently deserves to be heard in the other 
part. — His second objection is, that "the Romish Church," as 
he calls the Catholic Church, has made " a modern addition of 
five new sacraments to the two appointed by Christ ; making 
also the priest's intention necessary to the benefit of them." I 
have, in the course of these letters, vind ? cated the divine institu- 
tion of these five sacraments, and have shown that they are ac- 
knowledged to be sacraments, no less than the other two, by the 
Nestorian and Eutychian heretics, &c, who separated from the 
church almost fourteen hundred years ago, and, in short, by all 
the Christian congregations of the world, except a comparatively 
few modern ones, called Protestants, in the north of Europe. Is 
it from ignorance, or wilful misrepresentation, that the Bishop 
of London charges " the Romish Church with the modern addi- 
tion of five new sacraments ?" With respect to the intention of 



* Walton's Proleg, 

25* 



294 



LETTER XL VIII. 



the minister of a sacrament, I presume there is no sensible per. 
son who does not see the essential difference there is between 
an action that is seriously performed, and the mimicking or mock- 
ery of it by a comedian or buffoon. Luther, indeed, wrote 
that " the devil himself would perform a true sacrament, if he 
used the right matter and form but I trust that you, sir, and 
my other friends, will not subscribe to such an extravagance. 
I have alio discussed the subjects of relics and miracles, which 
the prelate next brings forward, so that it is not necessary for 
me to say any thing more about them, than that the church, in- 
stead of " venerating fictitious relics, and inventing lying mira- 
cles," as he most calumniously accuses her of doing, is strict to 
an excess in examining the proofs of them both, as he would 
learn, if he took the pains to inquire. In short, there are but 
about two or three articles in his lordship's accumulated charges 
against his mother church, which seem to require a particular 
answer from me at present. One of these is the following : 
<£ ( >f the same bad tendency is their (the Catholics) engaging 
s uh multitudes of people in vows of celibacy and useless re- 
crement from the world, their obliging them to silly austerities 
and abstinences, of no real value, as matters of great merit." 
In the first place, the church never engages any person whom- 
soever in a vow of celibacy ; on the contrary, she exerts her 
utmost power and severest censures to prevent this obligation 
from being contracted rashly, or under any undue influence.* 
True it is, she teaches that continency is a state of greater per- 
fection than matrimony ; but so does St. Paul.f and Christ him- 
self,:}: in words too explicit and forcible to admit of controversy 
on the part of any sincere Christian. True it is, also, that 
having the choice of her sacred ministers, she selects those for 
the service of her altar, and for assisting the faithful in their 
spiritual wants, who voluntarily embrace this more perfect 
state ;§ but so has the Establishment expressed her wish to do 
also, in that very act which allows her clergy to marry. || In 

* Concil. Trid. Sess. xxv. De Reg. cap. 15, 16, 17, 13. 

t See the whole chapter vii. of 1 Cor. t Matt. xix. 12. 

§ The second Council of Carthage, Can. 3, and Epiphanius, Haer. 48, 59 
trace the discipline of sacerdotal continence up to the apostles. 

|| " Although it were not only better for the estimation of priests and other 
ministers to live chaste, sole, and separated from women, and the bond of 
marriage, but also they might thereby the better attend to the administration of 
the gospel ; and it were to be wished that they would willingly endeavor 
themselves to a life of chastity," &c. 2 Ewd. vi. c. 21. See the injunction 
of Queen Elizabeth, against the admission of women into colleges, cathe. 
drals, &c., in Strype's Life of Parker. See likewise a remarkable instance of 
her rudeness to that archbishop's wife. Ibid, and in Nicol's Progresses, A 
D. 1561, 



VARIOUS MISREPRESENTATIONS. 



295 



like manner, I need go no further than the Homily on Fasting, 
or the " Tahle of Vigils, Fasts, and Days of Abstinence, to be 
observed in the year," prefixed to the Common Prayer-look, to 
justify our doctrine and practice, which the bishop finds fault 
with, in the eyes of every consistent church Protestant. I be- 
lieve the most severe austerities of our saints never surpassed 
those of Christ's precursor, whom he so much commended,* 
clothed as he was with hair-cloth, and fed with the locusts of 
the desert. 

In a former letter to your society, I have replied to what the 
bishop here says concerning the deposing of kings by the Roman 
pontiff, and have established facts by which it appears, that 
more princes were actually dispossessed of the whole, or a large 
part, of their dominions by the pretented gospel liberty of the 
Reformation, within the first fifty years of this being proclaimed, 
than the popes had attempted to depose during the preceding fif- 
teen hundred years of their supremacy. To this accusation 
another of a more alarming nature is tacked, that of our " an- 
nulling he most sacred promises and engagements, when made 
to the prejudice of the church." These are other words for the 
vile, hackneyed calumny of our not keeping faith with heretics.^ 
In refutation of this, I might appeal to the doctrine of our the- 
ologians, J and to the oaths of the British Catholics ; but I choose 
rather to appeal to historical facts, and to the practical lessons 
of the leading men by whom these have been conducted. I have 
mentioned that when the Catholic queen, Mary, came to the 
throne, a Protestant usurper, Lad}^ Jane, was set up against her, 
and that the bishops, Cranmer. Ridley, Latimer, Hooper, Rogers, 
Poynet, Sandys, and every other Protestant of any note, broke 
their allegiance and engagements to her, for no other reason 
than because she was a Catholic, and the usurper a Protestant. 
On the other hand, when Mary was succeeded by her Protest- 
ant sister, Elizabeth, though the Catholics were then far more 
numerous and powerful than the Protestants, not a hand was 
raised, nor a seditious sermon preached against her. In the 
mean time, on the other side of the Tweed, where the new gos- 
pellers had deposed their sovereign, and usurped her power, 
their apostle, Knox, publicly preached, that " neither promise 
nor oath can oblige any man to obey, or give assistance to ty- 

* Matt. xi. 9. 

t In the Protestant Charter-school Catechism, which is taught by author, 
ity, the following question and answer occur, p. 9. " Q. How do Papists 
treat those whom they call heretics ?" A. They hold that faith is not to 
be kept wirh heretics, and that the pope can absolve subjects from their oath, 
of allegiance to their sovereigns." 

t See in particular the Jesuit Becanus, He Fide Hareticis prestanda. 



296 



LETTER XLVIII. 



rants against God ;"* to which lesson his colleague, Goodman, 
added : " If governors fall from God, to the gallows with them."f 
A third fellow-laborer in the same gospel cause, Buchanan, 
maintained, that " princes may be deposed by their people, if 
they be tyrants against God and his truth, and that their sub- 
jects are free from their oaths and obedience.":}: The same in 
substance were the maxims of Calvin, Beza, and the Huguenots 
of France, in general ; the temporal interest of their religion 
was the rulirTg principle of their morality. But, to return to 
our own country : the enemies of church and state having hunted 
down the Earl of Strafford, and procured him to be attainted of 
high treason, the Idng, Charles I., declared that he could not, in 
conscience, concur to his death ; when, the case being referred to 
the archbishops Usher and Williams, and three other Anglican 
bishops, they decided (in spite of his majesty's conscience, and 
his oath to administer justice and mercy) that he might, in con- 
science, send this innocent peer to the block, which he did accord- 
i n gty-§ I should like to ask Bishop Porteus, whether this de- 
cision of his predecessors was not the dispensation of an oath, 
and the annulling of the most sacred of all obligations ? In like 
manner most of the leading men of the nation, with most of the 
clergy, having sworn to the solemn league and covenant, for the 
more effectual extirpation of Popery, they were dispensed with 
from the keeping of it by an express clause in the Act of Uni- 
formity. || But whereas by a clause of the oath in the same 
act, all subjects of the realm, down to constables and school-mas- 
ters, were obliged to swear, that " It is not lawful, upon any 
pretence whatsoever, to take up arms against the king;" this 
oath, in its turn, was universally dispensed with in the churches 
and in Parliament at the revolution. I have mentioned these 
few facts and maxims concerning Protestant dispensations of 
oaths and engagements, in case any of your society may object 
that some popes have been too free in pronouncing such dispen- 
sations. Should this have been the case, they alone, personally, 

* In his book addressed to the nobles and people of Scotland, 
t De Obedient. 

t History of Scotland. The same was the express doctrine of the Geneva 
Bible, translated by Coverdale, Goodman, &c, in that city, and in common 
use among the English Protestants, till'King James's reign ; for in a note on 
verse ] 2 of 2d Matt, these translators expressly say, " A promise ought not 
to be kept where God's honor and preaching of his truth is injured." Hist. 
Acct. of Eng. Translations, by A. Johnson, in Watson's Collect, vol. iii. p. 93. 

§ Collier's Church History, vol. ii. p. 801. On the other hand, when sev- 
eral of the Parliament's soldiers, who had been taken prisoners at Brentford, 
had sworn never again to bear arms against the king, they were " absolved 
from that oath," says Clarendon, " by their divines." Exam, of Neal's Hist, 
by Grey, vol. iii. p. 10, || Statute 13 and 14 Car. II. cap. 4. 



VARIOUS MISREPRESENTATIONS. 



297 



and not the Catholic Church, were accountable for it, both to 
God and man. 

I have often wondered, in a particular manner, at the confi- 
dence with which Bishop Porteus asserts and denies facts of an- 
cient church-history, in opposition to the known truth. An in- 
stance of this occurs in the conclusion of the chapter before me, 
where he says : — " The primitive church did not attempt, for 
several hundred years, to make any doctrine necessary, which 
we do not : as the learned well know from their writings."* 
The falsehood of this position must strike you, on looking back 
to the authorities adduced by me from the ancient fathers and 
historians, in proof of the several points of controversy which I 
have maintained : but, to render it still more glaring, I will 
recur to the histories of AERIUS and VIGILANT1US, two 
different heretics of the fourth century. Both St. Epiphaniusf 
and St. Augustin^: rank Aerius among the heresiarchs, or found- 
ers of heresy, and both give exactly the same account of his 
three characteristical errors ; the first of which is avowed by 
all Protestants, namely, that " prayers and sacrifices are not to 
be ofFered up for the dead and the two others by most of 
them ; namely, that " there is no obligation of observing the 
appointed days of fasting, and that priests ought not to be dis- 
tinguished, in any respect, from bishops. § So far were the pri- 
mitive Christians from tolerating these heresies, that the sup- 
porters of them were denied the use of a place of worship, and 
were forced to perform it in forests and caverns. j] Vigilantius 
likewise condemned prayers for the dead, but he equally repro- 
bated prayers to the saints, the honoring of their relics, and the 
celibacy of the clergy, together with vows of continence in 
general. Against these errors, which I need not tell you, Dr. 
Porteus now patronises, as Vigilantius formerly did, St. Jerom 
directs all the thunder of his eloquence, declaring them to be 
sacrilegious, and the author of them to be a detestable heretic.^ 
The learned Fleury observes, that the impious novelties of this 
heretic made no proselytes, and, therefore, that there was no 
need of a council to condemn them.** Finally, to convince 
yourself, dear sir, how far the ancient fathers were from tole- 
rating different communions or religious tenets in the Catholic 
Church, conformably to the prelate's monstrous system, of a 
Catholic Church, composed of all the discordant and disunited 
sects in Christendom, be pleased to consult again the passages 
which I have collected from the works of the former, in my 

* P. 73. t Haeresis 75. X De Haeres. torn. vi. Ed. Frob. 

4 Ibid. St. John Damascen and St. Isidore equally condemn these tenets 
as heretical. || Fleury's Hist. ad. An. 392. 

t Epiat. 1 and 2, adversus Vigilan. ** Ad. An. 405. 



298 



LETTER XLIX. 



fourteenth letter to your society ; or, what is still more demon- 
strative, on this point, observe, in ecclesiastical history, how 
the Quarto-decimans, the Novatians,* the Donatists, and the Lu- 
ciferians, though their respective errors are mere mole-hills, 
compared with the mountains which separate the Protestant 
communions from ours, were held forth as heretics by the fathers, 
and treated as such by the church, in her councils. — T am, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER XLIX. — TO JAMES BROWN, J UN., ESQ 

ON RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. 

Dear sir — 

I promised to treat the subject of religious persecution apart ; 
a subject of the utmost importance in itself, and which is spoken 
of by the Bishop of London in the following terms : " They, 
the Romish Church, zealously maintain their claim of punish- 
ing whom they please to call heretics, with penalties, imprison- 
ment, tortures, and death. "*{• Another writer, whom I have 
quoted above, says, that this church " breathes the very spirit 
of cruelty and murder. "ij: Indeed, most Protestant controver- 
tists seem to vie with each other, in the vehemence and bitter- 
ness of the terms by which they endeavor to affix this most 
odious charge of cruelty and murder, on the Catholic Church. 
This is the favorite topic of preachers, to excite the hatred of 
their hearers against their fellow Christians ; this is the last re- 
source of baffled hypocrites. If you admit the Papists, they cry, 
to equal rights, these wretches must and will certainly murder you, 
as soon as they can : the fourth Lateran Council has established 
the principle, and the bloody Queen Mary has acted upon it. 

I. To proceed regularly in this matter, I begin with express- 
ly denying the Bishop of London's charge ; namely, that the 
Catholic Church " maintains a claim of punishing heretics with 
penalties, imprisonment, tortures, and death ;" and I assert, on 
the contrary, that she disclaims the power of so doing. Pope 
Leo the Great, who flourished in the fourth century, writing 
about the Manichean heretics, who, as he asserted, laid all 
modesty aside, prohibiting the matrimonial connection, and sub- 
verting all law, human and divine," says, that " the ecclesias- 

* St. Cyprian being consulted about the nature of Novatian's errors, an- 
swered : " There is no need of a strict inquiry what errors he teaches, while 
he teaches out of the church." He elsewhere writes : The church being 
one, cannot be, at the same time, within and without. If she be with No- 
vatian, she is not with (Pope) Cornelius ; if she be with Cornelius, Novatian 
is not in her." Epist. 76, ad Mag. 

t Confut. p. 71. t De Coetlogan's Seasonable Caution, p. 15- 



PERSECUTION. 



299 



tical lenity was content, even in this case, witn the sacerdotal 
judgment, and avoided all sanguinary punishments,"* however 
the secular emperors might inflict them for reasons of state. In 
the same century, two Spanish bishops, Ithacius and Idacius, 
having interfered in the capital punishment of certain Priscil- 
lian heretics, both St. Ambrose and St. Martin refused to hold 
communion with them, even to gratify an emperor, whose cle- 
mency they were soliciting in behalf of certain clients. Long 
before their time. Tertullian had taught, that " It does not belong 
to religion to force religion ;"•(■ and a considerable time after, when 
St. Augustin and his companions, the envoys of Pope Gregory 
the Great, had converted our King Ethelbert to the Christian 
faith, they particularly inculcated to him, not to use forcible 
means to induce any of his subjects to follow his example.^: But 
what need of more authorities on this head, since our canon 
law, as it stood in ancient times, and as it still stands, renders 
all those who have actively concurred to the death or mutila- 
tion of any human being, whether Catholic or heretic, Jew or 
pagan, or even in a just war, or by exercising the art of surge- 
ry, or by judicial proceedings, irregular ; that is to say, such 
persons cannot be promoted to holy orders, or to exercise those 
orders, if they have actually received them. Nay, when an 
ecclesiastical judge or tribunal has, after due examination, pro- 
nounced that any person, accused of obstinate heresy, is actual- 
ly guilty of it, he is required by the church, expressly, to declare 
in her name, that her power extends no further than such deci- 
sion : and, in case the obstinate heretic is liable, by the laws of 
the state, to suffer death or mutilation, the judge is required to 
pray for his pardon. Even the Council of Constance, in con- 
demning John Huss of heresy, declared that its power extended 
no further. § 

II. But, whereas many heresies are subversive of the estab- 
lished governments, the public peace, and natural morality, it 
doos not belong to the church to 'prevent princes and states from 
exercising their just authority in repressing and punishing them, 
when this is judged to be the case ; nor would any clergyman 
incur irregularity by exhorting princes and magistrates to pro- 
vide for those important objects, and the safety of the church 
itself, by repressing its disturbers ; provided he did not concur 
to the death or mutilation of any particular disturber. Thus it 
appears that, though there -have been persecuting laws in many 
Catholic states, the church itself, so for from claiming, actually 
disclaims the power of persecuting. 

III. But Dr. Porteus signifies, || that the church itself has 

* Epist. ad Turib. t Ad Scapul. X Bed. Ecc. His. 1. i. c. 26 

$ Sess. xv. See Labbe's Condi, t. xii. p. 129. |J Conf. p. 47. 



300 



LETTER XLIX. 



claimed this power in the third canon of the Fourth Lateran 
Council, A. D. 1215, by the- tenor of which, temporal lords and 
magistrates were required to exterminate all heretics from their 
respective territories, under pain of these being confiscated to 
their sovereign prince, if they were laymen, and to their several 
churches, in case they were clergymen. From this canon it 
has been, a hundred times over, argued against Catholics, of 
late years, not only that their church claims a right to exter- 
minate heretics, but also requires those of her communion to aid 
and assist in this work of destruction, at all times, and in all 
places. But it must first be observed by those who were present 
at this council, and by whose authority these decrees of a tem- 
poral nature, were passed. There were then present, besides 
the pope and the bishops, either in person or by their ambas- 
sadors, the Greek and the Latin emperors ; the kings of Eng- 
land, France, Hungary, the Sicilies, Arragon, Cyprus, and Je- 
rusalem ; and the representatives of a vast many other princi- 
palities and states' ; so that, in fact, this council was a congress 
of Christendom, temporal as well as spiritual. We must, in 
the next place, remark the principal business which drew them 
together. It was the common cause of Christianity and human 
natiwe ; namely, the extirpation of the Manichean heresy ; 
which taught, that there were two first principles, or deities : one 
of them, the creator of devils, of animal flesh, of wine, of the 
Old Testament, &c. The other, the author of good spirits, of 
the New Testament, &c. ; that unnatural lusts were lawful, 
but not the propagation of the human species— that perjury 
was permitted to them, &c* This detestable heresy, which 
had caused so much wickedness and bloodshed in the preceding 
centuries, broke out with fresh fury, in the twelfth century, 
throughout different parts of Europe, more particularly in the 
neighborhood of Albi, in Languedoc, where they were support- 
ed by the powerful Counts of Thoulouse, Cumminges, Foix, and 
other feudatory princes ; as also, by numerous bodies of banditti, 
called Rotarii, whom they hired for this purpose. Thus strength- 
ened, they set their sovereigns at defiance, carrying fire and 
sword through their dominions, murdering their subjects, parti- 
cularly the clergy, burning the churches and monasteries ; in 
short, waging open war with them, and, at the same time, with 
Christianity, morality, and human nature itself ; casting the 
Bible into the jakes, profaning the altar-plate, and practising 
their detestable rites for the extinction of the human species. 

* See the Protestant historian Mosheim's account of the shocking violation 
of decency, and other crimes, of which the Albigenses, Brethren of the Free 
Spirit, &c, were guilty in the 13th century. Vol. iiL p. 284. 



PERSECUTION. 



301 



It was to put an end to these horrors that the great Lateran 
Council was held in the year 1215, when the heresy itself was 
condemned by the proper authority of the church, and the lands 
of the feudatory lords, who protected it, were declared to be for- 
feited to the sovereign princes, of whom they were held, by an 
authority derived from those sovereign princes. The decree of 
the council regarded only the prevailing heretics of that time, who, 
" though wearing different faces," being indifferently called AI- 
bigenses, Cathari, Poplicolse, Paterini, Bulgari, Bogomillii, Be- 
guini, Beguardi, and Brethren of the Free Spirit, &c, were 
" all tied together by the tails," as the council expressed it, like 
Sampson's foxes, in the same band of Manicheanism.* Nor 
was this exterminating canon ever put in force, against any 
other heretics, except the Albigenses, nor even against them, 
except in the case of the above-named counts. It was never so 
much as published, or talked of, in these islands : so little have 
Protestants to fear from their Catholic fellow-subjects, by reason 
of the third canon of the Council of Lateran. f 

IV. But they are chiefly the Smithfield fires of Queen Ma- 
ry's reign, which furnish matter for the inexhaustible declama- 
tion of Protestant controvertists, and the unconquerable preju- 
dices of the Protestant populace against the Catholic religion ; 
as breathing " the very spirit of cruelty and murder," accord- 
ing to the expression of one of the above-quoted orators. Nev- 
ertheless, I have unanswerably demonstrated elsewhere^ that, 
" if Queen Mary was a persecutor, it was not in virtue of the 
tenets of her religion that she persecuted." I observed, that 
during almost two years of her reign, no Protestant was molest- 
ed on account of his religion ; that in the instructions which 
the pope sent her for her conduct on the throne, there is not a word 
to recommend persecution : nor is there in the synod, which the 
pope's legate, Cardinal Pole, held at that time, one word, as 
Burnet remarks, in favor of persecution. This representative 
of his holiness even opposed the persecution project, with all 
his influence, as did King Philip's chaplain also, who even 
preached against it, and defied the advocates of it to produce an 
authority from Scripture in its favor. In a word, we have the 

* For a succinct, yet clear, account of Manicheanism, see Bossuet's Varia- 
tions, Book xi. ; also, for many additional circumstances relating to it, see 
Letters to a Prebendary, Letter IV. 

t For an account of the rebellious and anti-social doctrine and practices of 
the Wickliffites and Hussites, see the last-quoted work, Letter IV. ; also, 
History of Winchester, vol. i. p. 298. 

X Letters to a Prebendary, Letter IV., on Persecution ; also History of 
Winchester, vol. i. p. 354, &c. See in the former, p. 149, &c, proofs of the 
infidelity of the famous martyrologist, John Fox, and of the great abate^ 
mentg which are to be made in his account of tbe Protestant sufferers. 

26 



302 



LETTER XLIX. 



arguments, made use of in the queen's council, by those advo- 
cates for persecution, Gardiner, Bonner, &c, by whose advice 
it was adopted ; yet none of them pretended that the doctrine 
of the Catholic Church required such a measure. On the con- 
trary, all their arguments are grounded on motives of state 
policy. At the same time, it cannot be denied that the first 
Protestants in this, as in other countries, were possessed of and 
actuated by a spirit of violence and rebellion. Lady Jane was 
set up, and supported in opposition to the daughters of King 
Henry, by all the chief men of the party, both churchmen and 
laymen, as I have already observed. Mary had hardly for- 
given this rebellion, when a fresh one was raised against her by 
the Duke of Suffolk, Sir Thomas Wyat, and all the leading 
Protestants. In the mean time, her life was attempted by some 
of them, and her death was publicly prayed for by others ; 
while Knox and Goodman, on the other side of the Tweed, were 
publishing books Against the monstrous Regimen of Women, and 
exciting the people of this country, as well as their own, to put 
their Jezabel to death. Still, I grant, persecution was not the 
way to diminish either the number or the violence of the enthu- 
siastic insurgents. With toleration and prudence on the part 
of the governors, the paroxysm of the governed would quickly 
have subsided. 

V. Finally, whatever may be said of the intolerance 
of Mary, I trust that this charge will not he brought against 
the next Catholic sovereign, James II. I have elsewhere* 
shown, that, when Duke of York, he used his best endeavors 
to get the act De Heretico Comburendo repealed, and to afford 
an asylum to the Protestant exiles, who flocked to England from 
France, on the revocation of the edict of Nantz, and, in short, 
that when king, he lost his crown in the cause of toleration : 
his Declaration of Liberty of Conscience having been the deter- 
mining cause of his deposition. But what need of words to 
disprove the odious calumny, that Catholics "breathe the spirit 
of cruelty and murder," and are obliged, by their religion, to 
be persecutors, when every one of our gentry who has made 
the tour of France, Italy, and Germany, has experienced the 
contrary, and has been as cordially received by the pope him- 
self, in his metropolis of Rome, (where he is both prince and 
bishop,) in the character of an English Protestant, as if he were 
known to be the most zealous Catholic ! Still, 1 fear, there 
are some individuals in your society, as there are many 
other Protestants of my acquaintance elsewhere, who cling 
fast to this charge against Catholics, of persecution, as the 

* History of Winchester, vol. L p. 436 ; Letters to a Prebendary, p. 376- 



PERSECUTION. 



303 



last resource for their own intolerance ; and, it being true, that 
Catholics have, in some times and places, unsheathed the sword 
against the heterodox, these persons insist upon it, that it is an 
essential part of the Catholic religion to persecute. On the 
other hand, many Protestants, either from ignorance or policy, 
now-a-days, claim for themselves, exclusively, the credit of 
toleration. As an instance of this, the Bishop of Lincoln 
writes : — " I consider toleration as a mark of the true church, 
and as a principle recommended by the most eminent of our 
reformers and divines."* In these circumstances, I know but 
one argument to stop the mouths of such disputants ; which is, 
to prove to them, that persecution has not only been more gen- 
erally practised by Protestants than by Catholics, but also, that 
it has been more warmly defended and supported by the most 
eminent " reformers and divines " of their party, than by their 
opponents. 

I. The learned Bergier defies Protestants to mention so 
much as a town, in which their predecessors, on becoming mas- 
ters of it, tolerated a single Catholic. f Rousseau, who was ed- 
ucated a Protestant, says, that " the Reformation was intolerant 
from its cradle, and its authors universally persecutors. 
Bayle, who was a Calvinist, has published much the same 
thing. Finally, the Huguenot minister, Jurieu, acknowledges 
that " Geneva, Switzerland, the Republics, the Electors, and 
Princes of the Empire, England, Scotland, Sweden, and Den- 
mark, had all Employed the power of the state to abolish 
Popery, and establish the Reformation. § But to proceed to 
other more positive proofs of what has been said : the first 
father of Protestantism finding his new religion, which he had 
submitted to the pope, condemned by him, immediately sounded 
the trumpet of persecution and murder against the pontiff, and 
all his supporters, in the following terms : — " If we send thieves 
to the gallows, and robbers to the block, why do we not fall on 
those masters of perdition, the popes, cardinals, and bishops, 
with all our force, and not give over, till we have bathed our 
hands in their blood V'\\ He elsewhere calls the pope, " a 
mad wolf, against whom every one ought to take arms, without 
waiting for an order from the magistrate." He adds, " If you 
fall before the beast has received its mortal wound, you will 
have but one thing to be sorry for, that you did not bury your 
dagger in its breast. All that defend him must be treated like 
a band of robbers, be they kings or be they Caesars. "IT By 

* Charge in 1812. t Trait. Hist, et Dogmat. % Letters de la Mnnt. 
§ Tab. Lett, quoted by Bossuet, Avereiss, p. 625. || Ad Silvest. Perier. 
IT Thesus apud Sleid. A. D. 1545. Opera Luth. torn. I. 



304 



LETTER XLIX. 



these and similar incentives, with which the works of Luther 
abound, he not only excited the Lutherans themselves to pro- 
pagate their religion by fire and sword, against the emperor and 
other Catholic princes, but also gave occasion to all the san- 
guinary and frantic scenes which the Anabaptists exhibited, at 
the same time, through the lower parts of Germany. Coeval 
with these, was the civil war, which another arch -reformer, 
Zuinglius, lighted up in Switzerland, by way of propagating his 
peculiar system, and the persecution which he raised equally 
against the Catholics and the Anabaptists. Even the moderate 
Melancthon wrote a book in defence of religious persecution,* 
and the conciliatory Bucer, who became professor of divinity at 
Cambridge, not satisfied with the burning of the heretic, Serve- 
tus, preached that " his bowels ought to have been torn out, 
and his body chopped to pieces, "f 

II. But the great champion of persecution, every one knows, 
was the founder of the second great branch of Protestantism, 
John Calvin. Not content with burning Servetus, beheading 
Gruet, and persecuting other distinguished Protestants, Castallo, 
Bolsec, and Gentilis, (who, being apprehended in the neighbor- 
ing Protestant canton of Berne, was put to death there,) he set 
up a consistorial inquisition at Geneva, for forcing every one to 
conform to his opinions, and required that the magistrates should 
punish whomsoever this consistory condemned. He was suc- 
ceeded in his spirit, as well as in his office, by Beza, who wrote 
a folio work in defence of persecution .J In thjs he shows that 
Luther, Melancthon, Bullinger, Capito, no less than Calvin, had 
written works expressly in defence of this principle, which, 
accordingly, was firmly maintained by Calvin's followers, par- 
ticularly in France. Bossuet refers to the public records of 
Nismes, Montpelier, and other places, in proof of the directions 
issued by the Calvinist consistories to their generals, for 
" forcing the Papists to embrace the Reformation by taxes, quar- 
tering of soldiers upon them, demolishing their houses, &c; 
and he says, " the wells into which the Catholics were flung, 
and the instruments of torture which were used at the first- 
mentioned city to force them to attend the Protestant sermons, 
are things of public notoriety. "§ In fact, who has not read of 
the infamous Baron Des Ad rets, whose savage sport it was, to 
torture and murder Catholics, in a Catholic kingdom, and whf 
forced his son literally to wash his hands in their blood ? Who 
has not heard of the inhuman Jane, Queen of Navarre, who 

* Beza, De Haeret. puniend. 

t Ger. Brandt, Hist. Abreg. Refor. Pais Bas, vol. i. p. 454. 

t DeHaereticis puniendista Civili Magistratu, &c. t a Theod. Beza. 

§ Variat. L. x, m, 52. 



PERSECUTION, 



305 



massacred priests and religious persons, by hundreds, merely 
on account of their sacred character? In short, Catholic 
France, throughout its extent, and during a great number of 
years, was a scene of desolation and slaughter, from the unre- 
lenting persecution of its Huguenot subjects. Nor was the 
spectacle dissimilar in the Low Countries, when Calvinism got a 
footing in them. Their first synod, held in 1574, equally pro- 
scribed the Catholics and the Anabaptists, calling upon the 
magistrates to support their decrees,* which decrees were re- 
newed in several subsequent synods. I have elsewhere quoted 
a late Protestant writer, who, on the authority of existing public 
records, describes the horrible torments with which Vander- 
merk and Sonoi, two generals of the Prince of Orange, put to 
death incredible numbers of Dutch Catholics. "j" Other writers 
furnish more ample details of the same kind. J But while the 
Calvinist ministers continued to stimulate their magistrates to 
redoubled severities against the Catholics, (for which purpose, 
among other means, they translated into Dutch, and published 
the above-mentioned work of Beza,) a new object of their perse- 
cution arose in the bosom of their own society : Arminius, Vos- 
sius, Episcopius, and some other divines, supported by the illus- 
trious statesmen, Barnevelt and Grotius, declared against the 
more rigorous of Calvin's maxims. They would not admit, that 
God decrees men to be wicked, and then punishes them ever- 
lastingly for what they cannot help ; nor that many persons 
are in his actual grace and favor, while they are immersed in 
the most enormous crimes. For denying this, Barnevelt was 
beheaded. § Grotius was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, 
and all the remonstrant clergy, as they were* called, were ban- 
ished from their families and their country, with circumstances 
of the greatest cruelty, at the requisition of the Synod of Dort. 
In speaking of Lutheranism, I have passed by many persecu- 
ting decrees and practices of its adherents against Calvinists 
and Zuinglians, and many more of Calvinists against Luther- 
ans, while both parties agreed in showing no mercy to the Ana- 
baptists. Before I quit the continent, I must mention the Lu- 
theran kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden, in both which, as 
J urieu has signified above, the Catholic religion was extirpated, 
and Protestantism established, by means of rigorous persecu- 
ting laws, which denounced the punishment of death against the 
former. Professor Messenius, who wrote about the year 1600, 
mentions four Catholics who had recently been put to death in 

* Brandt, vol. i. p. 227. t Letters to a Prebend, p. 103. 

t See the learned Estius's Hist, of the Martyrs of Gorcum ; De Brandt, &c, 
§ Diodati, quoted by Brandt, says that the canons of Dort carried off th© 
head of Barnevelt, 

26* 



306 



LETTER XLIX. 



Sweden, on account of their religion, and eight others who had 
been imprisoned and tortured on that account, of whom he him- 
self was one.* 

III. To pass over now to the northern part of our own island. 
The first reformers of Scotland, having deliberately murdered 
Cardinal Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrew's,! and riotously 
destroyed the churches, monasteries, and every thing else, which 
they termed monuments of Popery, assembled in a tumultuous 
and illegal manner, and before even their own religion was 
established by law, they condemned the Catholics to capital pun- 
ishment for the exercise of theirs : " such strangers," says Rob- 
ertson, " were men, at that time, to the spirit of toleration, and 
the laws of humanity !"£ Their chief apostle was John Knox, 
an apostate friar, who, in all his publications and sermons, 
maintained, that " it is not birth, but God's election, which con- 
fers a right to the throne and to magistracy ;" that " no promise 
nor oath, made to an enemy of the truth, that is, to a Catholic, 
is binding ;" and that " every such enemy, in a high station, is 
to be deposed. "§ Not content with threatening to depose her, 
he told his queen, to her face, that the Protestants had a right 
to take the sword of justice into their hands, and to punish her, 
as Samuel slew Agag, and as Elias slew JezabeFs prophets. || 
Conformably with this doctrine, he wrote into England, that 
" the nobility and people were bound in conscience, not only to 
withstand the proceedings of that Jezabel, Mary, whom they 
called queen, but also to put her to death, and all her priests 
with her. "IT His fellow-apostles, Goodman, Willox, Buchanan, 
Rough, Black, &c, constantly inculcated to the people the 
same seditious and persecuting doctrine ; and the Presbyterian 
ministers, in general, earnestly pressed for the execution of their 
innocent queen, who was accused of a murder, perpetrated by 
their own Protestant leaders.** The same unrelenting intoler- 
ance was seen among the most moderate of their clergy, " when 
they were assembled by order of King James and his council to 
inquire, whether the Catholic Earls of Huntly, Errol, and their 
followers, on making a proper concession, might not be admitted 
into the church, and be exempt from further punishment?" 
These ministers then answered, that, " though the gates of mer- 
cy are always open for those who repent, yet, as these noble- 
men had been guilty of idolatry, (the Catholic religion,) a crime 
deserving death both by the laws of God and man, the civil 

* Scandia Illustrat., quoted byLe Brun. Mess. Explic. t. iv. p. 140. 
t Gilb. Stuart's Hist, of Ref. in Scotland, vol. i. p. 47, &e. 
t Hist, of Scotland, An. 1560. § See Collier's Eccle. Hist. vol. ii. p. 442. 
|| Stuart's Hist. vol. i. p. 59. IT Cited by Dr. Paterson, in his Jerus. and 
Babel. ** Stuart's Hist, vol. i. p. 255, 



PERSECUTION. 



307 



magistrates could not legally pardon them, and that, though the 
church should absolve them, it was his duty to inflict punish- 
ment upon them.'"* But we need not be surprised at any se- 
verity of the Presbyterians against Catholics, when, among 
other penances, ordained by public authority, agains their own 
members who should break the fast of Lent, whipping in the 
church was cme.f 

IV. The father of the church of England, under the author- 
ity of the Protector Seymour, Duke of Somerset, was confess- 
edly Thomas Cranmer, whom Henry VIII. raised to the Arch- 
bishopric of Canterbury ; of whom it is difficult to say, whether 
his obsequiousness to the passions of his successive masters, 
Henry, Seymour, and Dudley, or his barbarity to the sectaries who 
were in his power,, was the more odious : there is this circum- 
stance which distinguishes him from almost every other perse- 
cutor, that he actively promoted the capital punishment, not only 
of those who differed from him in religion, but also of those who 
agreed with him in it. It is admitted by his advocates, :j: that he 
was instrumental, during the reign of Henry, in bringing to the 
stake the Protestants, Lambert, Askew, Frith, and Allen, be- 
sides condemning a great many others to it, for denying the cor- 
poreal presence of Christ in the sacrament, which he disbelieved 
himself ;§ and it is equally certain, that during the reign of the 
child Edward, he continued to convict Arians and Anabaptists 
capitally, and to press for their execution. Two of these, Joan 
Knell and George Van Par, he got actually burnt, preventing 
the young King Edward from pardoning them, by telling him, 
that " princes, being God's deputies, ought to punish impieties 
against him."|j The two next most eminent fathers of the Eng- 
lish church were, unquestionably, Bishop Ridley and Bishop 
Latimer, both of them noted persecutors, and persecutors of 
of Protestants to the extremity of death, no less than of Ana- 
baptists and other sectaries ! IT 

Upon the second establishment of the Protestant religion in 
England, when Elizabeth ascended the throne, it was again but- 
tressed up here, as in every other country where it prevailed, 
by the most severe, persecuting laws. I have elsewhere shown, 
from authentic sources, that above two hundred Catholics were 
hanged, drawn, and quartered, during her reign, for the mere 
profession or exercise of the religion of their ancestors for almost 
one thousand years. Of this number, fifteen were condemned 

* Robertson's Hist. Ann. 1596. t Stuart, vol. ii. p. 94. 

t Fox, Acts and Monum. Fuller's Church Hist. b. v. 
§ See Letters to a Preb. p. 206. || Burnet's Church Hist. P. ii. b. i. 
H See the proofs of these facts collected from Fox, Burnet, Heylin, and 
Collier, in Letters to a Preb. Letter V, 



308 



LETTER XLIX. 



for denying the queen's spiritual supremacy, one hundred and 

twenty-six for the exercise of their priestly functions, and the 
rest for being reconciled to the Catholic Church, for hearing 
mass, or aiding and abetting Catholic priests.* When to these 
sanguinary scenes are added those of many hundreds of other 
Catholics, who perished in dungeons, who were driven into exile, 
or who were stripped of their property, it will appear that the 
persecution of Elizabeth's reign was far more grievous than that 
of her sister Mary, especially when the proper deductions are 
made from the sufferers under the latter. j- Ncr was persecu- 
tion confined to the 'Catholics ; for when great numbers of for- 
eign Anabaptists, and other sectaries, had fled into England, 
from the fires and gibbets of their Protestant brethren in Hol- 
land, they found their situation much worse here, as they com- 
plained, than it had been in their own country. To silence 
these complaints, the Bishop of London, Edwin Sandys, pub- 
lished a book in vindication of religious persecution.! In short, 
the protestant church and state concurred to their extirpation. 
An assembly of them, to the number of twenty-seven, having 
been seized upon in 1575, some of them were so intimidated as 
to recant their opinions, some were scourged, two of them, Pat- 
erson and Terwort, were burnt to death in Smithfield, and the 
rest banished. § Besides these foreigners, the English dissenters 
were also grievously persecuted. Several of them, such as 
Thacker, Copping, Greenwood, Barrow, Penry, &c, were put 
to death, which rigors they ascribed principally to the bishops, 
particularly to Parker, Aylmer, Sandys, and Whitgift.|| The 
last-named they accused of being the chief author of the famous 
inquisitorial court, called the Star-Chamber, which court, in ad- 
dition to all its other vexations and severities, employed the rack 
and torture, to extort confession. IT The doctrines and practice 
of persecution in England did not end with the race of Tudor. 
James I., though he was reproached with being favorable to the 
Catholics, nevertheless signed warrants for twenty-five of them 
to be hanged and quartered, and sent one hundred and twenty- 
eight of them into banishment, barely on account of their reli- 
gion, besides exacting a fine of twenty pounds per month from 

* Certain opponents of mine have publicly objected to me, that these Cath- 
olics suffered for high treason. True : the laws of persecution declared 
so ; but their only treason consisted in their religion. Thus the apostles, 
and other Christian martyrs, were traitors in the eye of the pagan law ; and 
the chief priests declared, with respect to Christ himself, we have a law, and 
according to that he ought to die. 

t See Letters to a Prebendary, pp. 149, 150. 

t Ger. Brandt, Hist. Reform. Abreg. vol. i. p. 234. 

Brandt, vol. i. p. 234. Hist, of Churches of Eng. and Scot. vol. ii. p. 199 
|1 Ibid. IT Mosheim, vol. iv. p. 40. 



Persecution. 



309 



those who did not attend the church service. Still he was re- 
peatedly called upon by Parliament to put the penal laws in 
force with greater rigor ; in order, say they, " to advance the 
glory of Almighty God, and the everlasting honor of your ma- 
jesty;"* and he was warned by Archbishop Abbot, against 
tolerating Catholics, in the following terms: "Your majesty 
hath propounded a toleration of religion. By your act, you la- 
bor to set up that most damnable and heretical doctrine of the 
Church of Rome, the whore of Babylon ; — and thereby draw 
down upon the kingdom and yourself, God's heavy wrath and 
indignation."*}* In the mean time the Puritans complained loudly 
of the persecution which they endured from the Court of High 
Commission, and particularly from Archbishop Bancroft, and 
the Bishops Neale of Litchfield, and King of London. They 
charged the former of these, with not only condemning Edward 
Wightman for his opinions, but also with getting the king's 
warrant for his execution, who was accordingly burnt at Litch- 
field ; and the latter, with treating in the same way Bartholo- 
mew Legat, who was consumed in Smithfield.i The same un- 
relenting spirit of persecution, which had disgraced the addresses 
presented to James, prevailed in those of the Parliament, and of 
many bishops to his son Charles. One of these, signed by the 
renowned Archbishop Usher, and eleven other Irish bishops of 
the Establishment, declares, that " to give toleration to Papists, 
is to become accessory to superstition, idolatry, and the perdi- 
tion of souls ; and that, therefore, it is a grievous sm."§ At 
length the Presbyterians and Independents, getting the upper 
hand, had an opportunity of giving full scope to their character- 
istic intolerance. Their divines, being assembled at Sion Col- 
lege, condemned, as an error, the doctrine of toleration, " under 
the absurd term," as they expressed it, "of liberty of con- 
science. "|| Conformably with this doctrine, they procured from 
their Parliament a number of persecuting acts, from those of fining 
up to those of capital punishment. The objects of them were not 
only Catholics, but also Church of England men, IT Quakers, Seek- 
ers, and Arians. In the mean time, they frequently appointed na- 
tional fasts to atone for their pretended guilt in being too tolerant.** 
Warrants for the execution of four English Catholics were ex- 
torted from the king, while he was in power, and near twenty 
others were publicly executed under the Parliament and the 
protector. This hypocritical tyrant afterwards invading lre- 

* Rushworth's Collect, vol. i. p. 141. t Rush worth's Collect. 

t Chandler's In;roduct. to Limbroehe's Hist, of Inquis. p. 80. jNeal's Hist, 
of Purit. vol. ii. > 

§ Lelarjd's Hist, of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 482. NeaPs Hist. vol. ii. p. 469. 
|| Hist, of Churches of Eng. and Scot. vol. iii. IT Ibid. ** Ibid. Neal's Hist. 



SiO 



LfiTTER XLIX. 



land, and being bent on exterminating the Catholic population 
there, persuaded his soldiers that they had a divine commission 
for this purpose, as the Israelites had to exterminate the Canaan- 
ites.* To make an end of the clergy, he put the same price 
upon a priest's as upon a wolf's head.f Those Puritans who, 
previously to the civil war, had sailed to North America to 
avoid persecution, set up a far more cruel one there, particu- 
larly against the Quakers, whipping them, cropping their ears, 
boring their tongues with a hot iron, and hanging them. We 
have the names of four of these sufferers, one of them a woman, 
who was executed at Boston.^: 

V. During the whole of the war which the Puritans waged 
against the king and constitution, the Catholics behaved with un- 
paralleled loyalty. It has been demonstrated, § that three-fifths 
of the noblemen and gentlemen who lost their lives on the side 
of royalty, were Catholics, and that more than half of the land- 
ed property confiscated by the rebels, belonged to Catholics. 
Add to this, that they were chiefly instrumental in saving 
Charles II. after his defeat at Worcester : they had, consequent- 
ly, reason to expect that the restoration of the king and consti- 
tution would have brought an alleviation, if not an end, of their 
sufferings. But the contrary proved to be the case : for then 
all parties seem to have combined to make them the common 
object of their persecuting spirit and fury. In proof of this, I 
need allege nothing more than that two different Parliaments 
voted the reality of Oaies's plot / and that eighteen innocent 
and loyal Catholics, one of them a peer, suffered the death of 
traitors on account of it : to say nothing of seven other priests 
who, about that time, were hanged and quartered for the mere 
exercise of their priestly functions. Among the absurdities of that 
sanguinary plot, such as those of shooting the king with silver 
bullets, and invading the island with an army of pilgrims from 
Compostella, &c.,|| it w r as not the least to pretend that the Catho- 
lics wished to' kill the king at all ; that king whom they had 
heretofore saved in Staffordshire, and whom they well knew to 
be secretly devoted to their religion. But any pretext was good, 
which would serve the purposes of a persecuting faction. These 
purposes were to exclude Catholics, not only from the throne, 
but also from the smallest degree of political power, down to 
that of a constable ; and to shut the doors of both houses of Par- 
liament against them. The faction succeeded in its first design 
by the Test Act, and in its second by the act requiring the De- 
claration against Popery ; both obtained at a period of national 

* Anderson's Royal Geneal. quoted by Curry, vol. ii. p. 11. 
t Ibid. p. 63. $ Neal's Hist, of Churches. 

§ Lord Castlemain's Catholic Apology. || Echard's Hist 



delirium and fury. What the spirit of the clergy was, at that 
time, with respect to the oppressed Catholics, appeared at their 
solemn procession at Sir Edmunbury Godfrey's funeral,* and 
still appears in three folio volumes of invective and misrepre- 
sentation then published, under the title of A Preservative against 
Popery. On the other hand, such was the unchristian hatred 
of the dissenters against the Catholics, that they promoted the 
Test Act with all their power, - )- though no less injurious to them- 
selves than to the Catholics ; and on every occasion they refused 
a toleration which might extend to the latter.! There is no 
need of bringing down the history of persecution in this country 
to a later period than the revolution, at which time, as I ob- 
served before, a Catholic king was deposed, because he would 
not be a persecutor. Suffice it to say, that the number of penal 
laws against. the professors of the ancient religion, and founders 
of the constitution of this country, continued to increase in every 
reign, till that of his present majesty, George III. In the course 
of this reign most of the old persecuting laws have been repeal- 
ed ; but the two last-mentioned, enacted in a moment of delirium, 
which Hume represents as our greatest national disgrace, I 
mean the. impracticable Test Act, and the unintelligible Declara- 
tion against Popery, are rigidly adhered to, under two ground- 
less pretexts. § The first of these is, that they are necessary for 
the support of the Established Church ; and yet it is undeniable, 
that this church had maintained its ground, and had flourished 
much more during the period which preceded these laws, than 
it has ever done since that event. The second pretext is, that 
the withholding of honors and emoluments is not persecution. 
On this point let a Protestant dignitary, of first-rate talents, be 
heard : " We agree, that persecution, merely for conscience 5 
sake, is against the genius of the Gospel ; and so is any law for 
depriving men of their natural and civil rights, which they claim 
as men. We are also ready to allow, that the smallest nega- 
tive discouragements, for uniformity's sake, are so many perse- 
cutions. An incapacity by law for any man to be made a judge 
or a colonel, merely on point of conscience, is a negative dis- 
couragement, and, consequently, a real persecution, 5 ' &c.jj In 
the present case, however, the persecution which Catholics suf- 

* North's Exam. Echard. t Neal's Hist, of Puritans, vol. iv. Hist, 

of Churches, vol. iii. \ Ibid. 

§ Since the venerable and illustrious author wrote this letter, namely, in 
the year 1829, the test act was partially repealed, and Catholics are now ad- 
missible to Parliament, and all civil offices of the state, with the exception 
of lord chancellor of England, lord lieutenant of Ireland, and high commis. 
sioner of Scotland, on taking an oath of abjuration and promising to observe 
certain conditions therein specified. — Edit. 

II Dean Swift's works, vol. viii. p. 56. 



812 



LETTER XLIX. 



fer from the disabilities in question, does not consist so much in 
their being deprived of those common privileges and advantages, 
as in their being held out by the legislature as unworthy of them, 
and thus being reduced to the condition of an inferior caste in 
their own country, the country of freedom : this they deeply 
feel, and cannot help feeling. 

VI. But to return to my subject : I presume, that if the facts 
and reflections which I have stated in this letter, had occurred 
to the right reverend prelates mentioned at the beginning of it, 
they would have lowered, if not quite altered, their tone on the 
present subject. The Bishop of London would not have charged 
Catholics with claiming a right to punish those whom they call 
heretics, "with penalties, imprisonment, tortures, and death;" 
nor would the Bishop of Lincoln have laid down "toleration as 
a mark of the true church, and as a principle recommended by 
the most eminent reformers and (Protestant) divines." At all 
events, I promise myself that a due consideration of the points 
here suggested, will efface the remaining prejudices of certain 
persons of your society against the Catholic Church, on the 
score of her alleged " spirit of persecution, and of her supposed 
claim to punish the errors of the mind with fire and sword." 
They must have seen that she does not claim, but that, in her 
very general councils, she has disclaimed all power of this na- 
ture ; and that, in pronouncing those to be obstinate heretics 
whom she finds to be such, she always pleads for mercy in their 
behalf, when they are liable to severe punishment from the 
secular power ; a conduct which many eminent Protestant 
churchmen were far from imitating, in similar circumstances. 
They must have seen, moreover, that if persecuting laws have 
been made and acted upon by the princes and magistrates in 
many Catholic countries, the same conduct has been uniformly' 
practised in every country, from the Alps to the arctic circle, in 
which Protestants, of any description, have acquired the power 
of so doing. But if, after all, the friends alluded to should not 
admit of any material difference on one side or the other in this 
matter, I will here point out to them two discriminating circum- 
stances of such weight, as must, at once, decide the question 
about persecution in disfavor of Protestants. 

In the first place, when Catholic states and princes have per- 
secuted Protestants, it was done in favor of an ancient religion, 
which had been established in their country, perhaps, a thousand 
or fifteen hundred years, and which had long preserved the 
peace, order, and morality of their respective subjects ; and 
when, at the same time, they clearly saw, that any attempt to 
alter this religion would, unavoidably, produce incalculable dis- 
orders, and sanguinary contests, among them. On the other 



CONCLUSION. 



313 



'hand, Protestants, everywhere, persecuted in behalf of new sys- 
tems, in opposition to the established laws of the church, and of 
the respective states. Not content with vindicating their own 
freedom of worship, they endeavored, in each country, by per- 
secution, to force the professors of the old religion to abandon it, 
and adopt theirs ; and they acted in the same way by their fel- 
low Protestants, who had adopted opinions different from their own. 
In many countries, where Calvinism got ahead, as in Scotland, in 
Holland, at Geneva, and in France, it was by riotous mobs, which, 
under the direction of their pastors, rose in rebellion against 
their lawful princes, and, having secured their independence, 
proceeded to sanguinary extremities against the Catholics. 

In the second place, if Catholic states and princes have en- 
forced submission to their church by persecution, they were 
fully persuaded that there is a divine authority in this church to 
decide in all controversies of religion, and that those Christiana 
who refuse to hear her voice, when she pronounces upon them, 
are obstinate heretics. But on what ground can Protestants per- 
secute Christians of any description whatsoever ? Their grand 
rule and fundamental charter is, that the Scriptures were given ly 
God for every man, to interpret them as he judges best. If, there- 
fore, when I hear Christ declaring, Take ye and eat, this is my 
body, I believe what he says, with what consistency can any 
Protestant require me, by pains and penalties, to swear that I 
do not believe it, and that to act conformably with this persua- 
sion is idolatry ? But religious persecution, which is every- 
where odious, will not much longer find refuge in the most gen- 
erous of nations : much less will the many victorious arguments 
which demonstrate the true church of Christ, our common 
mother, who reclaimed us all from the barbarous rites of pagan- 
ism, be defeated by the calumnious outcry that she herself is & 
bloody Moloch, that requires human victims. 

I am, &c. 

John Milner. 



LETTER L.— TO THE FRIENDLY SOCIETY OF NEW COTTAGE. 

CONCLUSION. 
My friends and brethren in christ — 

Having, at length, in the several letters addressed to your 
worthy president, Mr. Brown, and others of your society, com- 
pleted the task which, eight months ago, you imposed upon me, 
I address this, my concluding letter, to you in common, as a 
slight review of the whole. I observed to you, that to succeed 
in any inquiry, it is necessary to know and to follow the right 

27 



814 



LETTER L. 



method of making it. Hence, I entered upon the present im- 
portant search after the truths of the Christian revelation, with 
a discussion of the rules or methods followed, for this purpose, 
by different classes of Christians. Having taken for granted 
the following maxims : — that Christ has appointed some rule or 
method of learning his revelation ; that this rule must be an un- 
erring one ; and that it must be adapted to the capacities and sit- 
uations of mankind in general : I proceeded to show, that a sup- 
posed private spirit, or particular inspiration, is not that rule ; 
because this persuasion has led numberless fanatics, in every 
age since that of Christ, into the depths of error, folly, and wick- 
edness of every kind. I proved, in the second place, that the 
written word, or Scripture, according to each one's conception of 
its meaning, is not that rule ; because it is not adapted to the 
capacities and situations of the bulk of mankind — a great pro- 
portion of them not being able to read the Scripture, and much 
less to form a connected sense of a single chapter of it ; and be- 
cause innumerable Christians have, at all times, by following 
this presumptuous method, given into heresies, impieties, contra- 
dictions, and crimes, almost as numerous and flagrant as those 
of the above-mentioned fanatics. Finally, I demonstrated that 
there is a two-fold word of God — the unwritten and the written : 
that the former was appointed by Christ, and made use of by the 
apostles, for converting nations ; and that it was not made void 
by the inspired epistles and gospels which some of the apostles 
and the evangelists addressed, for the most part, to particular 
churches or individuals : that the Catholic Church is the divine- 
ly-commissioned guardian and interpreter of the word of God in 
both its parts ; and that, therefore, the method appointed by 
Christ for learning what he has taught on the various articles 
of his religion, is to HEAR THE CHURCH propounding them 
to us from the whole of his rule. This method, I have shown, 
continued to be pointed out by the fathers and doctors of the 
church in constant succession, and that it is the only one which 
is adapted to the circumstances of mankind in general ; the only 
one which leads to the peace and unity of the Christian church ; 
and the only one which affords tranquillity and security to in- 
dividual Christians during life, and at the trying hour of their 
dissolution. 

At this point, my labors might have ended ; as the Catholic 
Church alone follows the right rule, and the right rule infallibly 
leads to the Catholic Church. But, since Bishop Porteus, and 
other Protestant controvertists, raise cavils, as to which is the 
true church ; and whereas, this is a question that admits of a 
still more easy and more triumphant answer, than that concerning 
the right rule of faith, I have made it the subject of a second 



CONCLUSION. 



315 



series of letters, with which, I flatter myself, the greater part 
of you are acquainted. In fact, no inquiry is so easy, to an at- 
tentive and upright Christian, as that which leads to the discov- 
ery of the true church of Christ ; because, on one hand, all 
Christians agree in their common creeds, concerning the char- 
acters, or marks, which she bears ; and because, on the other 
hand, these marks are of an exterior ana splendid kind, such as 
require no extensive learning or abilities, and little more than 
the use of our senses and common reason, to discern the-m. In 
short, among the numerous and jarring societies of Christians, 
(all pretending to have found out the truths of revelation,) to 
ascertain which is the true church of Christ, that infallibly 
possesses them, we have only to observe, which among them is 
distinctively, ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, and APOSTOLI- 
CAL — and the discovery is made. In treating of these char- 
acters, or marks, I said it was obvious to every beholder, that 
there is no bond of union whatever among the different* socie- 
ties of Protestants ; and that no articles, canons, oaths, or laws, 
have the force of confining the members of any one of them, as 
experience shows, to a uniformity of belief, or even profession, 
in a single kingdom or island, while the great Catholic Church, 
spread, as it is, over the face of the globe, and consisting as it 
does, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and, tongues, is strictly 
united in the same faith, the same sacraments, and the same 
church- government ; in short, that it demonstratively exhibits the 
first mark of the true church, unity. With respect to the second 
mark, sanctity, I showed that she alone teaches and enforces the 
whole doctrine of the Gospel ; that she is the mother of all the 
saints, acknowledged as such by Protestants themselves ; that 
she possesses many means of attaining to sanctity, which the 
latter disclaim ; and that God himself attests the truth of this 
church, by the miracles with which, from time to time, he illus- 
trates her exclusively. And, whereas many eminent Protest- 
ant writers have charged the Catholics with deception and for- 
gery on this head, I have unanswerably retorted the charge 
upon themselves. No words were wanting to show, that the 
Catholic Church bears the glorious name of CATHOLIC, and 
very few to demonstrate, that she is catholic or universal, with 
respect both to place and time, and that she is also apostolical. 
The latter point, however, I exhibited in a more evident and 
sensible manner, by means of a sketch of an apostolical tree, a 
genealogical table of the church, which I sent you, showing the 
succession of her pontiffs, her most eminent bishops, doctors, 
and saints, as also, that of the most notorious heretics and schis- 
rnat.ics, who have been lopped off from this tree, in every age, 
from that of the apostles down to the present. " No church, 



316 



LETTER L. 



but the Catholic, can exhibit any thing of this kind," as TertuI- 
lian reproached the seceders of his time. Under this head, you 
must have observed, in particular, the want of an apostolical 
succession of ministry, under which I showed that all the Pro- 
testant societies labor; and their want of success in attempting 
the work of the apostles, the conversion of pagan nations. 

The third series of my letters has been employed in tearing 
off the hideous mask, with which calumny and misrepresenta- 
tion had disfigured the fair face of Christ's true spouse, the 
Catholic Church. In this endeavor, I trust, I have been com- 
pletely successful, and that there is not one of your society, 
who will any more reproach Catholics with being idolaters, on 
account of their respect for the memorials of Christ and his 
saints, or of their desiring the prayers of the latter ; or on ac- 
count of the adoration they pay to the divine Jesus, hidden un- 
der the. sacramental veils. Nor will they hereafter accuse us 
of purchasing, or otherwise procuring leave to commit sin, or 
the previous pardon of sins, to be committed ; or, in short, of 
perfidy, sedition, cruelty, or systematic wickedness of any kind. 
So far from this, I have reason to hope, that the view of the 
church herself, which I have exhibited to your society, instead 
of the caricature of her, which Dr. Porteus, and other bigoted 
controvertists, have held up to the public, has produced a desire 
in several of them to return to the communion of this original 
church ; bearing, as she clearly does, all the marks of the true 
church ; gifted, as she manifestly is, with so many peculiar 
helps for salvation ; and possessing the only safe and practica- 
ble rule for ascertaining the truths of revelation. The con- 
sideration which, I understand, has struck some of them, in the 
most forcible manner, is that which I suggested from my own 
knowledge and experience, as well as from the observation of 
the eminent writers whom I have named : that no Catholic, at 
the near approach of death, is ever found desirous of dying in any 
other religion, while numbers of Protestants, in that situation, seek 
to be reconciled to the Catholic Church. 

Some of your number have said, that though they are of 
opinion that the Catholic religion is the true one, yet they have 
not that evidence of the fact, which they think sufficient to justify 
a change in so important a point as that of religion. God for- 
bid, that I should advise any person to embrace the Catholic 
religion, without having sufficient evidence of its truth ; but I 
must remind the persons in question, that they have not a meta- 
physical evidence, nor a mathematical certainty of the truth of 
Christianity in general. In fact, they have only a high moral 
evidence and certainty of this truth : for with all the miracles 
and other arguments, by which Christ and his apostles proved 



CONCLUSION. 



317 



this divine system, it was still a stumbling-block to the Jews and 
folly to the Gentiles, 1 Cor. i. 23. In short, according to the 
observation of St. Augustin, there is light enough in it, to guide 
the sincere faithful, and obscurity enough to mislead perverse 
unbelievers ; because, after all, faith is not merely a divine il- 
lustration of the understanding, but also, a divine, and yet vol- 
untary motion of the will. Hence, if, in travelling through 
this darksome vale, as Locke, I think, observes, with respect 
to revelation in general, God is pleased to give us the light of the 
moon or of the stars, we are not to stand still on our journey, 
because he does not afford us the light of the sun. The same 
is to be said, with respect to the evidence in favor of the Catho- 
lic religion : it is moral evidence of the first quality ; far su- 
perior to that on which we manage our temporal affairs, and 
guard our lives ; and not, in the least, below that which ex- 
ists for the truth of Christianity at large. At all events, it 
is wise to choose the safer part ; and it would be madness to act 
otherwise, when eternity is at stake. The great advocates of 
Christianity, St. Augustin, Pascal, Abbadie, and others, argue 
thus, in recommending it to us, in preference to infidelity : now 
the same argument evidently holds good, for preferring the 
Catholic religion to every Protestant system. The most emi- 
nent Protestant divines, such as Luther, Melancthon, Hooker, 
Chillingworth ; with the bishops, Laud, Taylor, Sheldon, 
Bland ford, and the modern prelates, Marsh, and Pprteus him- 
self, all acknowledge, that salvation may be found in the commu- 
nion of the original Catholic Church : but no divine of this 
church, consistently with her characteristical unity, and the 
constant doctrine of the holy fathers, and of the Scripture it- 
self, as I have elsewhere demonstrated, can allow, that salva- 
tion is to be found out of this communion ; except in the case 
of invincible ignorance. 

It remains, my dear friends and brethren, for each of you to 
take his and her part ; but, remember, that the part you seve- 
rally take, is taken for ETERNITY ! On this occasion, there- 
fore, if ever you ought to do so, reflect and decide seriously and 
conscientiously, dismissing all worldly respects, of whatever 
kind, from your minds ; for what exchange shall a man receive 
for his soul ?* and what will the prejudiced opinion of your fel- 
low-mortals avail you at that tribunal, where we are all so soon 
to appear! and in the vast abyss of eternity, in which we shall 
quickly be all engulfed ! Will any of them plead your cause 
at the bar? Or^vill your punishment be more tolerable from 
their sharing in it ? Finally, with all the fervor and sincerity 



* Matt xvi. 20. 



318 



LETTER L. 



ot your souls, beseech your future Judge, who is now you? 
merciful Saviour, to bestow upon you that light to see your 
way, and that strength to follow it, which he merited for you, 
when he hung for three hours, your agonizing victim, on the 
cross. 

Adieu, my dear friends and brethren : we shall soon meet 
together at the tribunal 1 have mentioned ; and be assured, that 
I look forward to that meeting with a perfect confidence, that 
you and I, and the Great Judge himself, shall all concur, in 
approbation of the advice I now give you. 

I am, yours, &c. 

John Milner. 

Wolverhampton, May 29, 1802. 



THE END. 




•Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gatei 

of hell shall not prevail agaiust it." 



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